DONALD Trump’s Aberdeenshire golf course has reportedly breached sewage contamination limits more than a dozen times since 2019.
Documents released from the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa) reportedly showed that Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, had not treated human waste properly on 14 occasions over the last six years.
Sepa categorised eight of the 14 incidents as “upper tier”, which it describes as “extreme events which have the potential to cause immediate and serious environmental harm” and can lead to enforcement action, according to the Guardian.
Trump International Golf Links has a private sewage system that treats wastewater before releasing it into the ground by soaking it through gravel beds in raised filter mounds.
However, according to Sepa’s data, samples at the US president's golf course exceeded limits for biomechanical oxygen demand, a measure of the amount of oxygen required by microbes to digest organic matter, along with suspended solid particles and ammoniacal nitrogen.
All of which are contaminants from untreated human waste.
Groundwater samples of discharges at the course reportedly breached contamination levels several times, including four times in 2024 and once this year.
However, the executive vice-president of Trump International, Scotland, Sarah Malone, has said that environmental engineers have demonstrated that there was no environmental impact from the way wastewater was being treated and that Sepa has accepted their report.
She added that since the licence for the private wastewater system was issued in 2013, applications to renew it had never been refused.
“When the position was reviewed in August last year, leading environmental engineers submitted a detailed report demonstrating that there was no environmental impact from the way wastewater was being treated and this report was accepted by Sepa,” Malone said.
“It would be categorically wrong to suggest that our system was causing environmental damage and we would not hesitate to challenge such an assertion by any means necessary.
“From the outset, Sepa has insisted on a particularly intense level of monitoring of wastewater management at the site. A vast number of samples have been analysed by both Sepa and specialist environmental engineers we commissioned. The licence has not been breached 14 times – that is incorrect given that a certain number of exceedances are permitted when the frequency of monitoring is taken into account.
“Any exceedances have been very rare. We have been approved repeatedly by Sepa to continue the operation of our system more than a decade. The specialist environmental engineers we commissioned to undertake a parallel monitoring exercise contested Sepa’s findings on the occasional minor infractions. Those matters about methodology and sampling remain a matter of discussion between the engineers and Sepa.
Malone added: “Far from causing environmental damage, we are extremely proud of the environmental contribution at our golf courses. Extensive native grasses have been planted, many hectares of indigenous vegetation have been translocated, and new wetland and dune-slack habitats are flourishing.”
Campaigners have claimed that the construction of the course , and its expansion, on the Menie estate has done irreversible damage to the Foveran Links sand dunes, which led national nature agency Nature Scot to “de-notify” it as a site of special scientific interest (SSSI) in 2020.
In 2019, Scottish Wildlife Trust chief executive Jo Pike said: “Building Trump International Golf Links on a unique dune system has destroyed the dynamic nature that made it special.”
Sepa initially objected to the plans to build the course, partly because proposals for the resort were not connected to a public sewage system.
A Sepa spokesperson said: “While we expect better performance, our risk-based assessment concluded the environmental impact in these instances was minimal.
“The treated effluent passes through a soak-away system after the sampling point, providing further natural filtration before entering the ground. The soak-away significantly reduces the risk of the effluent impacting the environment.”
