Fish poisoned by effluent floats on the water at a tributary of the River Moyola
ANGLERS are furious after discovering a fish kill along a tributary of the River Moyola near Draperstown in Co Derry last night.
It is understood that the numbers killed by leaking effluent could be “significant”.
The Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) investigation has traced the source of the problem to nearby premises but said it was not agricultural.
Investigators will work today and Sunday to establish the actual extent of the impact of the fish kill.
Norman Henderson from the NIEA described it as a “fairly serious fish kill”.
“It’s a healthy wee river and it has been quite badly impacted,” he said.
“Obviously we’re in the early stages of the investigation because this came in on Friday and we’re in darkness and we can’t investigate at this time of the night.
“But we’ll be out again tomorrow (Saturday), colleagues from Inland Fisheries will be out again and they’ll quantify the number of fish and the precise length of river affected.”
Jack Chapman from Moyola Angling Association said the fish kill had destroyed a lot of good work that had been done on the river.
“We have lost some fish, fish can be replaced, but our concern is for the invertebrate and insect life in the river,” he said.
“We can’t replace that and that’s the food for the fish of the future.
“Also the club has done a lot of enhancement work around the river putting in spawning beds for the fish to spawn on, those may also have been destroyed in this incident.”
There has been a spate of fish kills this year across a number of counties setting back stock for several years.
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