Chemicals cause Cavan river fish kill

A FILE is being prepared for the DPP following a major fish kill in a Cavan river at the weekend.

A FILE is being prepared for the DPP following a major fish kill in a Cavan river at the weekend.

Fishery board inspectors have discounted farm effluent and regard chemical spillage as the cause.

The kill occurred in the Laragh River, downstream from a local authority water treatment plant at Clifferna which supplies water to Cavan town.

An official with Cavan County Council yesterday stated that a leakage of aluminium sulphate, a chemical used in the treatment of drinking water, had occurred at Clifferna last weekend.

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The council did not accept responsibility for the kill.

According to Mr Pat Foley, chairman of the Northern Regional Fisheries Board, the number of dead fish, trout and salmon purr may run into thousands.

He said the Laragh River was an extremely important angling amenity.

Stocks of trout had just been replenished following two kills in the 1980s.

The county council was convicted at that time of allowing aluminium sulphate to enter the same water course in 1985 and 1989.

In 1994 the river was cleaned by a local angling club through a FAS scheme. Following the 1985 conviction, the local authority settled a claim for damages brought by the Laragh Angling Club for £8,000.

Fishery board officers have taken dead fish from the water for analysis and used an electro fishing method in an attempt to quantify the loss.