Prosecutions may follow huge fish kill at Kanturk

PROSECUTIONS may be brought over a massive fish kill which took place on a ‘blue spot’ river in north Cork coinciding with a discharge of toxic chemicals from a water treatment plant in Freemount over the weekend, an official working with Inland Fisheries Ireland has said.

Investigations are ongoing after the discovery of around 5,000 dead fish on an 8km stretch of the River Allow from Freemount to Johnsbridge near Kanturk. These included salmon, juvenile salmon, trout, lamprey and other species.

The discovery of what has been estimated conservatively estimated to be around 5,000 dead fish has been described by Inland Fisheries Ireland as the most significant fish kill in the catchment area for several years. Previously about 2,500 fish were killed after a slurry tank was emptied into the river.

“In our view something caused the fish kill so something was allowed to discharge into the river from somewhere that caused the fishkill which would be a breach of both the 1959 Fisheries Act and also the Local Authority Water Pollution Act,” said Seán Long of Inland Fisheries Ireland.

“The issue here really is salmon fry, juvenile salmon, that were killed because the parent fish will have migrated up through the Blackwater, up through the Allow, to the spawning ground, those fry that were killed were fish that would have eventually migrated down through the Blackwater and gone to sea, they’re gone, that cohort has been wiped out on that stretch of river so naturally enough that will result in fewer salmon coming back up in a year or two.

“Not all fry survive to the point where they migrate downstream but whatever number of thousands of fry that would have been impacted there, they certainly won’t be travelling.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, a discharge of about 2,500lt of polyaluminium chloride into the River Allow was reported to the agency by Uisce Éireann on Sunday last.

In a statement from the EPA, a spokesperson said that the agency was investigating the incident alongside IFI and said details of this investigation would be made available when complete.

“Uisce Éireann stated the IFI have been notified of the incident,” the EPA statement said. In a statement from Uisce Éireann, a spokesperson said the company was “carrying out investigations and a clean up operation following an incident at Freemount Water Treatment Plant in recent days”.

Uisce Éireann is carrying out investigations and a clean- up operation following an incident at Freemount Water Treatment Plant in recent days. 

“Uisce Éireann fully recognises the seriousness of this incident and we immediately informed the relevant bodies and are co-operating fully with Inland Fisheries Ireland in relation to the investigation and clean-up of this incident,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“The EPA and National Parks and Wildlife Service have also been notified, and measures have been taken to ensure there can be no further discharge from the plant.

“We would also like to assure the community there has been no impact on the quality of drinking water.”