Uisce Éireann has been convicted and fined €3,500 after it pleaded guilty over a Co Cork pollution incident in which tens of thousands of fish were killed.
The utility company admitted at Mallow District Court, during a prosecution brought by Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), that it had permitted polyaluminum chloride to enter the Allow river at Freemount near Kanturk on June 9th last, contrary to section 171 of the Fisheries Consolidation Act 1959.
IFI senior fisheries environmental officer Andrew Gillespie said he was alerted by Cork County Council staff on June 9th to a spillage at the Uisce Éireann treatment plant and went to inspect the damage to the Allow, a tributary of the Blackwater.
He noticed thousands of dead and dying fish at St John’s Bridge, 4km downstream of the Freemount treatment plant and then travelled to Kilberrihert Bridge, 2km downstream of the plant, where he noticed thousands more dead fish.
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He met staff at the plant who showed him the spillage had occurred from a pipe carrying polyaluminium chloride from a bulk tank in a yard to a day tank in the plant. Mr Gillespie said polyaluminium chloride is a chemical used to clarify water by causing smaller solid particles to cluster together into large particles that can be filtered out.
He said the bulk storage tank was protected by a bund to contain spillages but there was no such protection around the pipe work. The spillage had seeped into a drain which entered the Allow river.
Water samples were taken at various points on the Allow, including one upstream of the plant, which showed no evidence of polyaluminium chloride contamination, and several downstream, which showed big concentrations of the chemical.
At one location, 10m downstream of the drain, rocks in the river had been bleached grey by the chemical. The pollution continued for 8km until it was diluted by water from smaller tributaries entering the Allow.
He said all fish life – including salmon, trout, eels and lamprey – had been killed over the 8km stretch. While it was difficult to give a precise figure, Mr Gillespie said he would conservatively estimate that tens of thousands of fish died after the pollutant affected their respiratory function.
IFI solicitor Vincent Coakley said Uisce Éireann had no previous convictions in relation to the Freemount plant, but had 18 convictions for similar offences nationally. He said the maximum penalty for the offences was a fine of €5,000.
Aoife Sheehan, for Uisce Éireann, said her clients had co-operated fully with IFI and had carried out an investigation into the cause of the spillage. She said build up of pressure in the pipe appeared to have led to it overheating and rupturing.
Ms Sheehan said a number of remedial measures had been carried out at the Freemount plant and that Uisce Éireann had consulted with the Environmental Protection Agency and started a review of the management of chemicals to ensure appropriate standards across the plants it had inherited from 31 local authorities.
Judge Colm Roberts said he had no doubt Uisce Éireann had inherited legacy issues from the local authorities that needed substantial investment but that it was a serious offence.
Taking into account the guilty plea, he fined the company €3,500 and ordered it to pay €3,267 in costs.
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