The river in Courtown has become discoloured.
Parts of the river in Courtown have become so polluted that it has turned a grey, almost white, colour in certain sections. Bringing the issue to the attention of the council’s environmental department, Councillor Joe Sullivan said he had seen first-hand the pollution issues on the river.
“I was down there last weekend and the river was pure white, as if lime was in it,” he said at the October meeting of the Gorey Kilmuckridge Municipal District (GKMD).
“I reported it to the council team and received word they had checked it and there was nothing to see here. The mistake I made was not getting a sample of it and getting it tested myself. Only then will I know what’s in there. It’s not muck, it hadn’t started raining at the time.”
Eager to locate the source of the problem, Cllr Sullivan then went to Smith’s Cross where he said the water was “as clear as day”.
“It’s coming from somewhere between Ashdown and Ballinatray. I’m going to walk that river until I find where it comes out of,” he said.
He received support from Cllr Darragh McDonald who has previously raised concerns about the council’s ability to accurately test bathing waters in the peak summer months.
“There seems to a constant panic in Courtown about what’s flowing into the harbour and the river, is there anything we can put in, like remote monitoring, to test it regularly?” he asked.
“We’d have to investigate where it’s going in at those particular points,” replied environmental engineer Enda Brennan. “It’d be no different to how we test the bathing waters. If you send on the locations we can direct our guys to that area.”
Cllr Pip Breen meanwhile, had his own ideas about where the issues were emanating from.
“The sewage plant in Ballycanew is under serious pressure, it’s not Courtown or Gorey that’s polluting the river because there’s plenty of capacity in the plants there, the only place I can think it could be originating is from Ballycanew,” he said.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.