The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun an investigation into effluent discharges by a creamery into a tributary of the Blackwater river in North Cork but says the discharge is not related to the deaths of thousands of fish in the river.
The EPA confirmed last night it is “conducting a Compliance Investigation into issues at North Cork Creameries related to the quality of effluent discharges into the River Allow”, which flows downstream from Kanturk town into the Blackwater.
“Based on the investigation to date, there is no causal link between the site’s emissions and the tragic loss of fish life further downstream in the River Blackwater,” said the EPA which has been liaising with Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) in the wake of the fish kill.
According to IFI, some 8,000 to 10,000 fish comprising primarily brown trout but including juvenile salmon and dace have died over an 18km stretch of the Blackwater, beginning some 12km upstream of Mallow and extending 6km downstream of the town.
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But local angling groups have estimated that more than 40,000 fish have died over the past eight days and that the dead fish have been found over a 30km stretch of the river from Clonmeen, near Banteer, all the way down to Killavullen, which is downstream of Mallow.
The EPA said North Cork Creameries, which is a farmer-owned co-operative, is taking actions to reduce inputs to its waste water treatment plant and to restore compliance with its licence.
The EPA said it is not currently considering an order to shut down milk-processing operations at the site but said the site-visit reports by its staff will be available on its online Licence Enforcement Access Portal.
In a statement, North Cork Creameries said it is not connected yo the fish deaths and noted the preliminary sample results from the EPA indicate “no causal link between the fish kill and discharges from EPA-licensed sites”.
It said it is engaging with the EPA in line with its licensing requirements and commitment to environmental sustainability. For clarity, it said, the area of concern is about six kilometres downstream from its site.
“As we regularly do, we have also taken our own water samples in the river as it passes our operations and this confirmed normal water quality and normal fish activity in the waterway at our location,” the co-operative said.
The confirmation by the EPA it is investigating North Cork Creameries comes as a leading figure in angling on the Blackwater warned the fish kill could result in the river taking up to ten years or more to replenish its fish stocks.
Chairman of Killavullen Angling Club Conor Arnold said the large fish kill is going to have repercussions for years in terms of angling on the Blackwater which supports up to 1,000 trout and salmon anglers.
“It’s very hard to put an exact number of fish that died but we applied a bit of logic to the number of fish we were taking out and we are definitely in the tens of thousands – it’s definitely over 40,000 from what we can estimate – it’s phenomenal – the river is dying before our eyes.
“Brown trout are indigenous to the river and while it’s hard to estimate, such is the scale of the fish kill, I would estimate it will take eight to ten years for the stock to replenish while it will also have a huge impact on salmon as two to three generations of salmon have been wiped out.
“It’s going to seriously damage one of the primary salmon and trout fisheries in Europe.”
