What the muck! Eco-friendly university power station explodes covering the area with stinking cows' poo

An eco-friendly power station suddenly exploded this morning showering the surrounding area with hundreds of tonnes of stinking cow dung.

The blow out in a slurry processing tank happened in the early hours at the plant outside Harper Adams University near Newport in Shropshire.

Onlookers said one side of the 30ft tall corrugated metal building was completely torn off while the roof and supporting wall collapsed.

Thousands of gallons of slurry spilled into a nearby farm flooding one road and leaving several fields waterlogged.

Fire crews and police arrived at the scene at 10am and sealed off the scene with tape while the buildings were inspected.

Environment Agency officials spent the day at the site assessing the damage and working to minimise the effect on the environment.

A university spokesman said: 'The University is working with them (The Environment Agency) to assess the damage and minimise any impact on the environment.'

Onlookers yesterday described the extent of the damage.  One said: 'The plant is made up of about six main structures and one, a 30ft high corrugated metal building at the back of the plant, has had virtually all of one side apparently blown out.

'There is a huge mountain of slurry piled up inside which has poured from the building onto a farm track and part of the roof has collapsed.

'It looks like there is tonnes of the brown slime that has spilt out in total, it will certainly take a while to clean up.'

The incident is the second time the £3million power plant has leaked sludge in the last year. In February last year thousands of gallons of waste flooded farmland and entered rivers after a storage tank was left unsealed for 36 hours.

Temporary dams were then put up to stop more pollution flowing into watercourse which feed the rivers Strine and Tern.

The anaerobic digestion plant was built in 2011 in a bid to offset carbon emissions and has saved 3.4 times the current emissions from campus buildings.

The plant takes food and farm waste and creates power to be used at Harper Adams University.

Named after a wealthy 19th century farmer, the university is the UK’s leading specialist provider of higher education for the agri-food chain and rural sector.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).