Probe over river 'polluted with dead fish and blood'

An probe has been launched pursuing reports of dormant fish, humor and scales polluting a stream successful Fort William.

Locals spotted the emanation - which they said smelled similar "rotting fish" - coming from a discarded tube astatine the Lochyside flood defences into the River Lochy connected Sunday.

Scottish Water and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) are looking into the matter.

Seafood supplier Mowi Scotland, which has a food processing works successful the adjacent Blar Mhor concern estate, said they had carried retired their ain probe and that the contaminants did not travel from their facility.

Activist Don Staniford, who campaigns with the radical Abolish Salmon Farming, said the incidental was "nothing new" and locals spot humor successful the stream "all the time".

Mr Staniford, who lives successful the area, told BBC News locals had seen blood-tainted h2o coming from the outflow tube connected Kilmallie road, adjacent Caol beach, and shared pictures to societal media.

He said they reported the incidental to Sepa.

He said: "It’s an implicit horror-show retired there. It’s stinking, smelling similar rotten fish.

"There were truthful galore scales precise heavy concentrated astir the country of the retired tube but the humor went the afloat magnitude of the river.

"Locals person seen humor present before. Things similar this hap each the time."

Following a sojourn to the tract of the incident, Mr Staniford believes the dormant food successful the h2o to beryllium wrasse.

Wrasse food are utilized to support farmed taxon specified arsenic salmon escaped from oversea lice and helps minimise the usage of chemic treatments.

Mowi Scotland is the UK's largest supplier of farm-raised salmon with 48 farms producing 68,000 tonnes of salmon annually.

A spokesperson said: "Mowi has undertaken its ain probe into the incidental astatine the River Lochy wherever section radical reported a reddish discharge.

"Mowi is assured that the discharge did not travel from its installation astatine the Blar Mhor Industrial Estate."

The institution said it had checked each of its operating procedures, its effluent strategy and CCTV.

It said effluent is lone released to the Scottish Water attraction works astatine Caol Point, little than 2 miles down the river.

The institution added: "Mowi is not the lone concern which processes this benignant of worldly connected the Blar Mhor Industrial Estate but is the lone 1 regulated by Sepa nether IPPC regulations."

A spokesperson for Scottish Water who tally the discarded attraction astatine Caol Point said the h2o institution are moving with Sepa to analyse the incident.

Sepa inquire members of the nationalist with concerns astir a imaginable contamination incidental to contact the 24-hour contamination line.