{"id":47609,"date":"2025-09-28T03:39:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T03:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47609\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T03:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T03:39:14","slug":"farm-suspected-of-river-weaver-pollution-that-killed-fish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47609\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm suspected of River Weaver pollution that killed fish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Richard PriceWest Midlands<\/p>\n

\"CleanClean The Weaver<\/p>\n

The pollution this summer follows a similar incident in October 2023 (pictured) which left hundreds of fish dead<\/p>\n

A farm is suspected as being the main source of pollution, thought to be slurry, in a river where a number of fish died this summer, bosses at the Environment Agency (EA) say.<\/p>\n

Environment minister Emma Hardy wrote to Crewe and Nantwich MP Connor Naismith following the incident on the River Weaver in the Nantwich area.<\/p>\n

At about 13:30 BST on 21 August, a member of the public alerted the agency to fish in distress, she said in the letter.<\/p>\n

The minister added the EA “is confident that it has identified the principal source of the pollution of the most recent fish death, and a full investigation is under way”.<\/p>\n

An EA spokesperson confirmed it had identified a farm as a suspected source and was “investigating any link to a subsequent significant fish kill”.<\/p>\n

Reoxygenation of the water by officers over the August bank holiday weekend had reduced the number of fish deaths, they said.<\/p>\n

Hardy wrote: “EA officers were deployed over multiple days, working long hours to gather evidence, monitor water quality, and mitigate harm to the river and its wildlife.”<\/p>\n

“This sustained effort ensured the situation was managed effectively and environmental damage was minimised.”<\/p>\n

\"CleanClean The Weaver<\/p>\n

Since the incident in October 2023, the Environment Agency says it has carried out 186 inspections across 146 farms in the Upper Weaver catchment<\/p>\n

The minister added that, following another incident in October 2023<\/a> in which hundreds of fish died, the EA had carried out 186 inspections across 146 farms in the Upper Weaver catchment.<\/p>\n

She explained this work had led to 194 environmental improvements, the issuing of nine compliance notices and 77 formal warnings, as well as a number of ongoing cases.<\/p>\n

There were also a number of reports from the public in July this year relating to pollution and fish in distress, Hardy said.<\/p>\n

She described how the EA had carried out a number of visits since and identified some issues, but none were deemed significant enough to cause immediate concerns.<\/p>\n

No single source was identified for the July pollution, Hardy continued, but the issues would have contributed to poor water quality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard PriceWest Midlands Clean The Weaver The pollution this summer follows a similar incident in October 2023 (pictured)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-47609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}