More bad news

[tigger]

I had a walk down my local river today checkin it out for a trottin session tomorrow. Anyway as I approached the water My heart sank as I noticed fish bodies literally all over the bottom, I counted over 60 in 20 yards. I phoned the EA who confirmed a pollution (he thought oil of some kind) case of serious proportions! Pretty sickening to say the least.

 

[Paul C]

which river?

 

[tigger]

It's the river douglas in Lancashire. Going off what I saw and the EA chap told me it's not going to be worth fishing it for quite some time. The river was just startin to fish well after years of pollution and here we go again....back to square one, it's really pi$$ed me off as it's my local stream and I'm always on it's banks. It's only recently there was a bad pollution incident in Southport on one of their better drains/waters n'all.

 

[peter crabtree]

Tigger,very upsetting I'm sure,it's not good.If you and your mates want to help in some way ,may I suggest you email martin james at bbc radio lancashire and he will help.

 

[tigger]

Hello Peter, thing is what could we do according to the EA fella everything was being dealt with. It was a stretch of the Wigan anglers where I saw the dead fish. You are right about it being upsetting...all those fish dead due to someones negligence or some someones pig ignorance, what a waste. It makes you wonder how long the river will take to recover ! The Ea fella said they'll re stock it but the fish they stock arn't gonna be as big as the ones lying dead and will need years to grow on. You can probably tell I'm very upset about it as I love the place.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

The old ACA

Have you, or the angling club, contacted the people at Fish Legal?

That is the new name for what used to be the ACA. They should take up the case, and prosecute those responsible.

 

[Geoff Brown]

Don't forget of course that current legislation allows raw sewerage to be discharged into our precious waterways in times of heavy rainfall. When the sewerage treatment works reaches capacity, it's either that or our drains overflowing with raw sewerage.

Until an alternative solution is found is hard to know how fish kills from this particular menace can be avoided.

Of course this may not be relevant to this particular incident, but it's pertinent none the less.

 

[tigger]

As I said the ea man said it was oil but I could see no signs of oil and I would have said it would be most likley sewage or something other than oil.

I've just spoken to a friend who works for the local waterboard and he reckons there are several hundred dead fish in the canal outside his office in Wigan where there's a feed from the douglas. He thinks the pollution is from a dye factory known to have caused this type of thing before !