Years of work to improve the biodiversity of a Co Tyrone river was ‘wiped out in hours’ after a slurry spill killed everything within around 9km.
Mid Ulster SDLP councillor Malachy Quinn said the incident on Sunday night has left him “angry and depressed”. It’s understood that slurry from a farm spilled into drains which feed into the River Torrent and subsequently Coalisland Canal, leaving a “dead” zone from Newmills to Clonoe.
Cllr Quinn says it’s the third time in four months he’s had to alert the Environment Agency about spills into the river. Now he is calling for a “rethink about what’s running into our waters” as well as better protections to stops such catastrophes which will impact the otters and kingfishers that use the river as well.
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Cllr Quinn said: “There was a slurry spill on Sunday. When it was investigated there was a 7km stretch the slurry got to all the way from Newmills to just past the Moore Bridge [Clonoe]. Thousands of fish are just dead. Fisheries NI were down on Monday and that’s when they started to see the real damage and now there’s fish lying everywhere.”
We’re told the species that perished included cod, trout and all sorts of other fish.
“The river is basically dead. They have described it as a major incident,” he added. “I am very angry and depressed to be honest. The amount of work that people have put into the Torrent and the Canal, building up the wildlife... and all of a sudden it’s just literally wiped out in a matter of hours.
“I’ve been talking to people who said there were kingfishers down there and they’ll not stick around if there’s no fish. The otters that have come back into the Torrent will be gone as well as there’s no fish to feed on. That will have a knock with all sorts of insects and wild life that had come back to the [Coalisland] canal.
“This is the third time there’s been a leak into the river in the last four months - it’s the third time I’ve had to phone [Northern Ireland] Environment Agency,” he added. “This was the only slurry one, chemicals and oil was one of them and the first one was sand and dirt.”
Malachy says that while some fish kills are completely accidental, those handling substances that can cause such devastating damage “need to take better precautions”.
“There needs to be a rethink in general about what’s running into our waters,” he added. “There needs to be better protections put in place.
“All these fish are dead - but the fact is all this is flowing into our rivers and streams and killing wildlife and affecting human life and it just needs to be sorted.”
Those in the community also reacted with anger to news of the fish kill on Clonoe Gallery.
“Torrent back to square one,” said one man. Another added: “Unbelievable. When is this going to stop. How many rivers this year? Too many.”
A DAERA spokesperson said: “At 10.10hrs on Sunday 19 June 2022, Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) received a water pollution report indicating that there had been a significant slurry spillage to the Torrent River, Newmills, Co Tyrone approx. 5km North East of Dungannon.
“NIEA immediately deployed a Water Quality Inspector to the area to confirm the report and assess the environmental impact, a joint investigation with DAERA Inland Fisheries is underway.
“The source has been identified and NIEA are currently working with the premises involved to identify what further measures can be employed to mitigate the impact of the spillage on the Torrent River.”
They later told us: “The joint investigation, being carried out by NIEA and DAERA Inland Fisheries remains live and the assessment of the impact on the fishery will be continuing on Wednesday. From the evidence available to date a 9km reach of the river has been affected. The fishery impact assessment continues however at this point in the investigation, it is known that in excess of 3,500 salmonid fish, mostly trout, and approx. 100 eels have been killed due to the pollution incident that occurred on Sunday 19 June.”
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