THOUSANDS of fish are feared lost and water supplies to householders are threatened after 20,000 gallons of slurry escaped from a farm on the upper reaches of a tributary of the Arigadeen river near Clonakilty, Co Cork, because of a faulty valve in a slurry tank.
Cork County Council engineers shut down the intake of water from the river yesterday evening as the effluent passed the intake point for water at Jones Bridge.
Meanwhile, officers of the South Western Fisheries Board completed the task of removing fish from the river. Mr Aiden Barry, the board's manager, described the pollution incident as "very serious".
Hundreds of sea trout, smolt, brown trout and salmon parr were taken from the river ahead of the effluent slick by passing an electrical current through the water to stun the fish temporarily. This enabled them to be removed to a truck and transported to the tidal area of the river some miles away.
"We are very disappointed that this could happen", Mr Bauy said. "This is the third year in a row that there has been a substantial fish kill in the general Cork area.
Mr Paddy Leahy, a senior engineer with Cork County Council, said that the river water was being constantly monitored. They had acted as soon as they learnt of the slurry leak.
He confirmed that a quantity of slurry had been removed from the river and pointed out that the slick was being continually diluted as it traversed the seven mile stretch of water from its source.
He estimated that there was little more than a day's supply of water in the reservoir, which had been full when the intake had to be closed. The council was appealing to the approximately 6,000 householders who depend on this source of water to conserve supplies and cut down usage over the next few days.