{"id":56360,"date":"2025-10-02T03:24:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T03:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/56360\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T03:24:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T03:24:14","slug":"questions-remain-over-blackwater-fish-kill-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/56360\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions remain over Blackwater fish kill \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 9.10am on last August 12th, an angler made a call to the Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> (EPA) to report a large number of dead and ailing fish on the Blackwater river close to Mallow, Co Cork<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Almost simultaneously, Inland Fisheries Ireland<\/a> (IFI) also contacted the agency to raise the alert.<\/p>\n

The EPA dispatched inspectors to three sites on the river within the hour, kick-starting an investigation that would ultimately involve multiple government departments, public bodies and scientific, environmental and health agencies.<\/p>\n

But it was too late. Around 42,000 fish were dead or dying. Already the trail that might have led to the cause had gone cold. <\/p>\n

The distress that the deaths of so many fish, mostly highly valued salmon and trout, caused among anglers, environmentalists and the wider community has turned to anger and frustration since. <\/p>\n

It seems improbable that a multi-agency investigation with experienced personnel, good local knowledge and access to sophisticated laboratory services has been unable to pinpoint the cause of death. <\/p>\n

Yet that is the conclusion of the final report on the incident published on Thursday evening. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018We took out 450 fish in an hour\u2019: Blackwater pollution highlights decade of poor environmental compliance<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pollutant or the source that caused the fish mortalities has not been identified,\u201d it says. <\/p>\n

Tom Ryan, EPA director of enforcement, said afterwards: \u201cNobody wants to see what happened here. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a terrible, devastating event in a protected water and it is intolerable. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we could find the culprit for this, if it\u2019s in our jurisdiction, we certainly would be holding them to account.\u201d <\/p>\n

The \u201cculprit\u201d, he believes, could be \u201csomething one-off, possible sinister or criminal in nature \u2013 or reckless\u201d. <\/p>\n

He was thinking of something dumped, washed out or allowed to spill into the river. It was fast-acting and, unfortunately for testers, equally fast to disappear. <\/p>\n

The chances of identifying it were already slim when the investigation began. <\/p>\n

Marine Institute<\/a> analysis points to the fish encountering some sort of pollutant on August 5th or 6th \u2013 yet no testing of water, fish or potential industrial or wastewater pollution sources was organised before August 12th. <\/p>\n

Dead fish were spotted on August 9th, but Inland Fisheries Ireland, the EPA, Uisce \u00c9ireann<\/a> and Cork County Council<\/a> say they were only notified between August 11th-12th. <\/p>\n

There is no single point of contact for a member of the public to call so all relevant agencies can hear and respond. <\/p>\n

\u201cCan all these arrangements be improved? Can we learn from this? Of course,\u201d Dr Ryan said. \u201cBut reaction is one thing, prevention is what\u2019s key.\u201d <\/p>\n

Responsibility for pollution prevention resides in different jurisdictions, however. <\/p>\n

The EPA licences large industries and wastewater facilities and polices the pollution they can legally undertake. <\/p>\n

County councils permit smaller businesses and are responsible for farm inspections.<\/p>\n

Water quality monitoring comes under multiple agencies. Enforcement of standards and regulations is convoluted.<\/p>\n

Several licensed operators were non-compliant at the time of the fish kill, including repeat offender, North Cork Creameries, although their breaches were found not to have caused the incident.<\/p>\n

Dr Elaine McGoff of the Sustainable Water Network said a shake-up in regulatory authorities was needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should at least be a 24-hour emergency hotline that gets inspectors on the ground immediately something happens,\u201d she said. \u201cSome big polluter is out there breathing a big sigh of relief.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bob Seward of the Angling Council of Ireland said the final report could not be last word on the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not finished as far as we are concerned. There needs to be lessons learned. There needs to be an evaluation of the processes \u2013 for protection and response. This is fire brigade stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 9.10am on last August 12th, an angler made a call to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[39865,246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-56360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-blackwater-river","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}