Dave
Ferguson - 6-Sep-2006 - The Environment Agency
is warning people to stay away from the River
Coln until it has identified the chemicals which
leaked into the river.
Thousands of fish, including
trout and bullheads, died following the leak of
chemicals into the river.
Barry Russell, Environment Manager
at the Environment Agency, said: “We don’t want
to alarm people unnecessarily, but until we have
isolated exactly what the chemicals in the River
Coln are, and what effects they may have, we would
advise people to stay away from the water.
“Our officers have been working
hard since the incident, day and night, to reduce
the amount of pollutants reaching the river and,
where they have, to mitigate the impact on fish.
“Sadly a large number of fish
have been killed in this incident, but we have
undertaken a fish rescue near Withington last
night and we are continuing to monitor the situation
to gauge whether more action would be appropriate.
“We have employed two aerators
just below Withington and earlier today fisheries
teams found live fish, which were not in distress,
upstream of where we believe the pollutants to
have reached. This is an encouraging sign, but
if we feel another rescue is appropriate we will
carry one out.”
The weather forecast for the
remainder of the week currently looks good and
the flow of the river is not expected to increase
over the next few days. This will help to slow
down the movement of the pollution.
The Environment Agency
continues to remain at the scene of the fire working
with other emergency services to give advice on
the appropriate clean-up of the site.
