Fish Legal has been alerted to a serious agricultural pollution that took place on 28th April on a tributary of the River Teifi. Slurry escaping from a farm on Wednesday evening poured into the Afon Cych, which feeds into the Teifi - known by anglers as the “Queen of Rivers” - at Abercych. Environment Agency officers and Fish Legal members - the Teifi Trout Association - were at the river bank yesterday assessing the extent of the fish kill.

It is understood that the farmer responsible for the pollution has been cautioned.

An eye witness 2 miles downstream of where the pollution went in described the water level rising by around 18 inches as a result of the spill. With very little rain in the area recently to dilute its potency in the river early indications are of environmental damage on a massive scale.

John Holt, local resident and member of the Teifi Trout Association, said:

“We were working upstream from Environment Agency officers and over a 400yard stretch we pulled out hundreds of dead fish. We had buckets full of a mix of large sea trout and brown trout up to 10 inches long. That’s broodstock. We didn’t even begin to collect up all the tiny fry and fingerlings that littered the river bed. Many of them would have hatched out this year”.

He added:

“I would say at least 25,000 fish must have been killed overall.”

Following the outcome of the Environment Agency’s investigation, Fish Legal will look to take legal action against the farmer on behalf of the Association to fully compensate the club for the impact to its fishing.


NOTES TO EDITORS
1. Fish Legal is the new name for the Anglers’ Conservation Association, which was founded in 1948 to use the law to fight to protect the aquatic environment and fisheries. Since then, the organisation has won in excess of two thousand cases and recovered many millions of pounds in damages, which has been returned to the members represented to plough back into angling and the protection of the aquatic environment. Only four cases have ever been lost in Court. Fish Legal employs its own in-house legal team covering the whole of the UK.
2. Fish Legal operates throughout the UK and is backed by thousands of individual anglers. In England only, Fish Legal is the legal arm of the Angling Trust.
3. Angling clubs or fishery owners wishing to join Fish Legal and Angling Trust and individuals wishing to become supporters of Fish Legal and Angling Trust should phone 01568 620447 during office hours, write to the address below, or download a subscription form from the website: www.fishlegal.net or www.anglingtrust.net
4. The Teifi Trout Association controls over twenty four miles of prime fishing on the Teifi from the upper tidal limit near the bridge at Llechryd to Cenarth. Their waters are described as “probably the best mixed game fishery in Wales” and are renowned in particular for the three species of game fish: salmon, sewin and brown trout.
For more information on Fish Legal or the Angling Trust , please contact mark.lloyd@fishlegal.net or write to Eastwood House, 6 Rainbow Street, Leominster, Herefordshire HR6 8DQ or call 01568-620447.