Ballymacraven river may never recover from pollution that killed thousands of fish, an incident that highlights an even wider problem as the State’s water treatment infrastructure creaks under growing pressure
At least 2,000 fish, including critically endangered species, were suffocated by ferric sulphate in Ballymacraven river in Clare last year. The previous day, an IFI colleague had found the fish on the lower Ballymacraven river, outside Ennistymon, and stored them safely. The specimens included some of Ireland’s most critically endangered species: European eel, Atlantic salmon and brown trout.
The story of how the ferric sulphate suffocated the fish may never have surfaced were it not for a member of the public who had been walking along the river three days previously. They spotted a rusty brown liquid in the water and realised it was not typical; they took a photograph and sent it to the IFI.Pints at the Aviva, dinner at Roly’s and the Dart home.
An estimated 2,000 fish died, but a lot more may have been killed . Some of the dead eels discovered on the banks were large females, 10 to 15 years old, who may have been on their way to breed in the Sargasso Sea when they died. In 2014, when Irish Water was established and inherited the treatment plants from local authorities, the Ennistymon plant did not have a licence to discharge waste into the river. Theaudited the plant that year and several problems were identified, not least that it was operating at 55 per cent above its capacity.
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