Fish kill caused by water body

Fish kill caused by water body

4 April 2012 - by Ciara Colhoun

NORTHERN Ireland Water Limited has been fined £4,000 for killing hundreds of fish in a major pollution incident at the Shimna River in Newcastle.

The fine was imposed at Downpatrick District Court on Monday where the water authority was also fined £500 for a less serious pollution incident in Crossgar. Both incidents happened in the summer of 2009.

The court heard that 400 trout and three dozen salmon were killed in the most serious incident in Newcastle when the Shimna River was flooded with a contaminated overspill from the Fofanny water treatment plant near Bryansford on September 20, 2009.

The incident came to light when a member of the public noticed dozens of dead fish floating in the water, which was filled with a brown sludge.

At the time, NI Water blamed the discharge on electrical problems at the Fofanny plant that meant there had to be an emergency release of water to avoid an interruption of supplies to around 80,000 properties.

Although the dead fish were found the following day, NI Water did not confirm at the time that the fish had died due to the release of dirty water.

A senior member of Shimna Angling Club, Mr. Ed Kilgore, told the Down Recorder on September 23, 2009, that he believed “lessons needed to be learned” from the incident.

“This has happened and it probably was an accident but it must not be repeated again,” said Mr. Kilgore.

“Our hope is that steps will be taken to prevent any further discharges of dirty water from this plant and that something will be done to reinstate the river’s environment.”

At Monday’s court, the incident was described by a prosecutor as a “serious pollution incident with a significant fish kill” in an area of special scientific interest.

A defence lawyer accepted the seriousness of the incident and said it would cost £1,700 to re-stock the fish.

He insisted the incident was not caused by “lack of attention”, but was instead due to a flaw in the alarm system, which should have alerted staff to the gravity of the situation. He added that the system was updated in 2010, which should prevent such reoccurrence.

He emphasised that NI Water, as a publicly-funded organisation, operated with finite resources but takes its environmental obligations very seriously.

The defence barrister said the pollution incident in Crossgar, which happened in June 2009, was also due to an alarm error.

On this occasion, effluent had seeped from a sewage pumping station at Crossgar Road into Carson’s Dam River.

The court heard that NI Water officials only became aware of the June 10 incident four days after it had happened, although the incident on this occasion was not considered serious.

Fining the water authority on Monday, District Judge Greg McCourt said the incident in Newcastle was “more serious” than the Crossgar case, but he recognised that NI Water officials had taken steps to ensure it will never happen again.