A Co. Derry farmer has pleaded guilty at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court for a water pollution offence that killed 146 fish.
Richard Mulholland (40) from Ballymacpeake Road, Portglenone pleaded guilty and was fined £500 plus £15 Offenders Levy and ordered to pay £304.84 as compensation as a result of a fish kill.
The court was told that on July 29, 2021 a Senior Water Quality Inspector (SWQI) acting on behalf of Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) responded to a report of pollution close to the Angling Club House on Mayogall Road, Clady.
The SWQI made his way across several fields to a location where a small sheugh containing a dark green/brown coloured liquid was observed entering the main Clady River.
The estimated distance of impact from the discharge point in the sheugh to the Clady River was 980m and a further 3km of the Clady River was impacted.
River pollution
The SWQI returned to the area on July 30, 2021 to continue with the investigation and they examined a drainage chamber in a field on Ballymacpeake Road that leads to a small waterway that flows into the Clady River.
The flow was foaming in nature and smelled of agricultural effluent. A large pool of agricultural effluent was observed entering a roadside surface water gully.
In accordance with procedures a tripartite statutory sample of the active discharge was collected and analysed and found to contain poisonous, noxious, or polluting matter which was potentially harmful to fish life in the receiving waterway.
Effluents of this nature enrich fungus coverage on the bed of the watercourse which may lead to the destruction of fish spawning sites, as well as starving both fish and river invertebrates, on which fish feed, of oxygen.
Effluents with high ammonia content, as was the case with this one, are also directly toxic to fish life in receiving watercourses.
