Northern Ireland’s environmental oversight system is “broken” with polluters able to act with “impunity”, according to an angling club that lost thousands of fish when slurry spilled into a Co Antrim river.
The Crumlin and District Angling Association has said it received confirmation this week from the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) that nobody will be prosecuted for the widely reported, major pollution incident in February 2023.
More than 3,500 fish were killed along a 6km section of Crumlin River in the incident which NIEA blamed on farm slurry.
The club says that in recent years there have been 41 confirmed pollution incidents on the same river, which runs into Lough Neagh, but not a single prosecution.
Crumlin and District Angling Association development officer David Kennedy there was “no recompense” for the club, as the managers of the waters.
“There is no way for us to reinstate what we have lost in terms of the number of fish and the damage to the entire ecosystem and habitat,” he said.
“Our river is in a much poorer state due to this major pollution incident, as will be Lough Neagh, where ultimately all this pollution ends up.”
Mr Kennedy said “polluters will continue to pollute with impunity while the current approach continues”.
“Quite frankly the system of reporting, investigating, ranking and bringing a case to completion is broken – of the major fish kills across Northern Ireland between 2019 and 2023, amazingly 32 out of 49 saw no prosecution,” he said.
“It is our view the urgent change is needed – we will be writing to both the minister for agriculture, environment and rural affairs and the independent panel, asking for a meeting to urgently address these concerns.”
Earlier this week, Agriculture and Environment Minister Andrew Muir appointed a three person panel to conduct a review of environmental governance, including “considering options for an independent environment protection agency”.
Sinn Féin’s MLA Declan Kearney said the lack of prosecutions for fish kills was “deeply concerning”. Sinn Féin has been meeting with angling groups who also share these frustrations.
“The importance of maintaining clean waterways cannot be overstated -their contamination has severe implications for our wider environment, including the destruction of associated biodiversity, adverse impacts upon the health of fish species, undermining the quality of drinking water, and resilience of the food chain,” e said.
“Anyone found to be contaminating waterways either deliberately or through reckless behaviour must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
”SDLP MLA Patsy McGlone said the absence of “any meaningful action” following the Crumlin River fish kill underlined the “dire need” for an independent environmental protection agency, a commitment in 2020’s New Decade New Approach deal.
“For far too long people have been able to pollute our rivers and lakes, kill wildlife and destroy biodiversity while facing little consequences,” the Mid Ulster representative said.
“This is nowhere near the first incident of its kind and it surely won’t be the last unless something is done about it. Instead of bringing forward yet another review, the minister should be putting all his efforts into delivering the independent environmental protection agency to safeguard our environment and ensure that anyone who harms it faces the appropriate sanctions.”
A statement on behalf of NIEA said: 40 incidents of “varying severity” in the Crumlin River catchment in the past five years, six of which resulted in enforcement actions that “have been, or are being, pursued”.
“In the case of the February 2023 incident, despite a very rapid response and investigation, unfortunately it was not possible to secure sufficient evidence about the pollution source to enable the Public Prosecution Service to take forward a prosecution.” the statement said.
