{"id":35085,"date":"2025-08-31T18:58:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T18:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35085\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T18:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T18:58:07","slug":"creamery-denies-involvement-in-river-blackwater-fish-kill-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35085\/","title":{"rendered":"Creamery denies involvement in river Blackwater fish kill \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dairy plant close to the river Blackwater in Co Cork said it was \u201centirely impossible\u201d that it was responsible for pollution that anglers estimate killed 40,000 fish in the river a fortnight ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

North Cork Creameries said it was \u201cnot connected\u201d with the large-scale fish kill that took place on August 12th on the river in the area of Lombardstown, despite Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)<\/a> tests which found the co-op was not in compliance with its discharge licences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing at any level of concentration or content in the wastewater effluent outflow from North Cork Creameries that could possibly have caused the appalling levels of injury and death to fish that took place near Lombardstown – which is a full 10km away from our facility,\u201d it said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Normal river and fish activity continued at the location of the plant, the company said, which is upstream of where the fish kill occurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fish kill is a deeply serious and distressing event for the entire community. But it is an equally serious issue, and essential, to ensure accountability that is based on evidence, not assumption. Unfounded claims, speculation, or selective use of information risk misleading the public and unfairly damaging reputation,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

The EPA took a \u201cgrab sample\u201d<\/a> of effluent discharge at the creamery on the afternoon of August 12th. The co-op was found to be \u201cnon compliant with its licence\u201d at the time of the agency site visit, the EPA said. One non-compliance notice was also issued in relation to incident notification.<\/p>\n

Tests indicated that ammonia, orthophosphate and phosphorus levels were above the permitted amount. A spokeswoman for the EPA said a full report interpreting this data will be made available in due course.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs this investigation is still ongoing we are not in a position to discuss the results further,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

North Cork Creameries said it had been working with the EPA over a period of months to ensure compliance with its wastewater emission licence. \u201cThis already existing EPA process should not and must not be misinterpreted or conflated into the Blackwater incident,\u201d its statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFollowing the incident, the EPA stated that their investigation had found no causal link between our site and the fish kill in the river Blackwater. Furthermore, local EPA officials themselves have recently described water quality in the river Allow (both upstream and downstream of our facility) as \u2018good\u2019 which is the second highest grade for river water quality,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n

EPA officials attended and observed normal fish activity in the river Allow, beside the plant, on August 12th, the company said.<\/p>\n

The company said it was aware of the \u201cgrab water\u201d test results. \u201cIn spite of the non-compliant water quality test result noted in the immediate area of our licensed wastewater outflow, it needs to be understood that the water contents and their levels identified by that test are not at any level that could possibly have killed fish or caused the extreme chemical injury to fish that took place 10km away in the river Blackwater near Lombardstown.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was, the company said, \u201centirely impossible, wrong and incorrect for anyone to state that we are connected with the fish kill 10km away in the greater river Blackwater\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement last week<\/a>, the EPA said, \u201cGiven the distance between the North Cork Creameries discharge and the Blackwater, the volume of water in both rivers and the good ammonia levels in the Blackwater at that time, it is considered that the North Cork Creameries discharge could not have caused the fish kill in the Blackwater.\u201d<\/p>\n

North Cork Creameries said today it was aware of \u201cassorted rumour-mongering and innuendo circulating on social media which serves only to mislead.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe encourage concerned parties to focus only on evidence rather than fuelling speculation, unnecessary exaggeration or unfounded rumour that distracts from the real issue which is to establish the truth of what caused this incident.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dairy plant close to the river Blackwater in Co Cork said it was \u201centirely impossible\u201d that it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[1877,18,440,11394,19,17,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-35085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-cork","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-environmental-protection-agency-epa","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}