The blaze at the Campsie site in October 2009.
A Derry business man has been given 240 hours community service after pleading guilty to breaching waste management legislation.
James Joseph Heaney (45), of Spruce Meadows, admitted four offences in relation to two tyre recycling plants in the city involving over 400,000 waste tyres.
Derry Crown Court heard during July and November 2008, officers from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, (NIEA) investigated two sites operated by Heaney at Pennyburn Industrial Estate and Campsie Real Estate where substantial quantities of waste tyres had been deposited.
The tyres had been processed through a tyre “crumbing” machine in which the waste tyres were ground down and the casing wire separated.
The two sites were abandoned in 2009 with around 20,000 tyres deposited at the Pennyburn site and approximately 385,500 tyres left at the Campsie site.
The two sites were subject to arson attacks.
The Pennyburn site was set on fire on 18 August 2009 and the Campsie site on 4 October later that year, resulting in the blazes being deemed “major incidents.”
An Eglinton primary school was forced to close during the Campsie fire, which took four days to bring under control and involved around 70 firefighters and eight pumps, including one from Letterkenny in Co Donegal.
Members of the public were advised to close all windows until the respective fires were brought under control.
Contaminated water run-off from the fire entered the storm water drainage system and a stream which bounds the eastern perimeter of the site.
NIEA’s Water Management Unit and the Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service placed pollution control measures into the storm water system and the stream to reduce potential impact on the stream and Lough Foyle, where the stream discharges.
An application under the Proceeds of Crime Act was also made during the hearing.
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