Monday 21 September 2009

Diesel pollution incident on River Sett

Over the weekend on either Saturday evening 19-Sep or Sunday morning 20-Sep there has been a diesel pollution incident on the River Sett. The source is reported to be Unit 3 at Thornsett Industrial Estate. The Environment Agency has been informed and booms have been installed on the River Sett.

I haven't visited the site but those who have report seeing and smelling diesel on the River Goyt on Sunday morning at both Kruger, and at Mousley Bottom. Another local anglers tells me that on Monday evening 21-Sep diesel can still be seen coming down the River Sett.

3 comments:

andrew parker said...

Posted on behalf of Andrew Griffiths

Update on this - have spoken to an EA press officer and apparently, there was a break in at the depot and - quote - 'intermediate bulk containers' were tipped up and their contents, believed to be diesel, found its way into
the river. The police are investigating... Begs a lot of questions that. For now, I'll let you all think of your own... ;-) Andrew (Griffiths)

andrew parker said...

Posted on behalf od Don Green

Hi Andrew

On Sunday morning Breck phoned me at around 8-30 am. This was regarding the pollution spill into the river. Breck and his friend Alan was about to go fishing in
the middle beat of D&NMAC close to Disley Paper Mill. However when they got close to the water the smell of Fuel was very strong and they could see a large amount
floating upon the surface. Breck phoned me at home to tell me of this problem. I then phoned the E.A to report this, my E.A ref. number was 717659. Meanwhile Breck
and Alan followed the river back upstream and found that the pollution was coming down the river Sett. I met up with Alan and Breck at the Band Room in Thornsett, from there we went up the private road towards the trading estate. We parked in the
grounds of the trading estate and followed our noses, the smell of fuel was still in the air however the river was by this time looking quite clean with only a trace of
fuel in the margins of the river. We also went upstream from this spot and found no trace of pollution at all. Coming back to the industrial estate we found a pipe that the fuel may have poured from, this was at the very top of the estate close to a bridge over the river. Using Brecks phone I phoned the E.A to tell them what we had found, we then went home. Later I met Joe Braddock and we went for a inspection of the water, when we went back to the industrial estate we found a garage with a large quantity of fuel trapped under it door only yards from the pipe where the fuel may have entered the river. I also phoned this information back to the E.A and told them to look at the building with unit 3 on the wall close to the pipe.

Unfortunatly we didn't take any photo's of the fuel floating on the water, I did take however a small snatch of video of the area we thought the spill had come from.

Hope this helps.

Don.

andrew parker said...

Email received from EA Fisheries Officer, Kevin Nash

I initially heard about this pollution incident yesterday and have received some updates today.

Diesel found its way into the river due to an act of vandalism that is being investigated by the police. The incident has been attended by Environmental Officers and the local Fisheries Officer. Neither saw any dead fish or signs of fish in distress, so the incident has a low category and isnt due to receive an invertebrate investigation.

Have you or any club members seen any signs of fish in distress?

I've asked our monitoring team to look at their current invertebrate monitoring coverage to see if any impacts might be detected through routine biological water quality monitoring.

Regards

Kevin Nash