'Urgent action' sought following fish kill incidents in this Kildare region
The Environmental Protection Agency is currently investigating one recent fish kill incident which occurred in the area
'Urgent action' has been sought following fish kill incidents in one County Kildare region.
The call was made by a local councillor who attended the latest Celbridge-Leixlip Municipal District meeting, which took place on Friday, July 17 last.
The subject initially arose when Social Democrats Cllr Nuala Killeen motioned for Kildare County Council (KCC) to write to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage [James Browne TD, Fianna Fáil], the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Inland Fisheries Ireland and Uisce Éireann ‘seeking urgent action following recent and previous fish kill incidents on the River Rye’.
According to Cllr Killeen, she wanted this correspondence to include ‘the establishment of a formal rapid response protocol for serious river pollution incidents, a review of continuous water quality monitoring, an update on actions arising from the joint EPA / Inland Fisheries Ireland report of 2022, and further measures to prevent recurrence’.
Cllr Killeen’s motion was seconded by her party colleague, Cllr Claire O’Rourke.
In response to her motion, KCC said via the report it presented at the meeting: “An active investigation is currently taking place in relation to the incident at the River Rye and KCC is not in a position to discuss further until the investigation is concluded.”
KCC added: “Please note that the Inland Fisheries Ireland protocol was followed and implemented.”
‘OF SIGNIFICANT CONCERN’
Speaking further on her motion, Cllr Killeen noted that the most recent fish kill incident occurred earlier this month, and emphasised to KCC that it is ‘of significant concern’ to the local community.
This prompted a representative for KCC who was also in attendance at the meeting to tell Cllr Killeen: “The results will be provided as soon as they are made available.”
They added that, at present, there is no information available regarding the timeline of the EPA’s investigation.
Cllr Killeen then asked KCC: “Can it be placed on the progress report?” to which the representative replied that the matter could be placed on KCC’s progress report.
Following this, a separate representative for KCC briefly entered the conversation, and asserted to Cllr Killeen: “I get the sense that they [the EPA] are on top of things [referring to its ongoing investigation].”
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