Tipperary fish kill breaking: 100 brown trout found dead in Ballina stream

Inland Fisheries Ireland is investigating a fish kill at Ballycorrigan Stream near the confluence of the River Shannon at Ballina.

Staff observed approximately 100 brown trout of various age groups, three juvenile salmon and a stone loach dead in an approximately 100 m stretch from the Ballina Waste Water Treatment Plant discharge pipe to the confluence with the River Shannon last Thursday.

There are live fish upstream of the waste water treatment plant.

Preliminary investigations have indicated that maintenance works carried out during the day in the Ballina treatment plant may have caused a deleterious or polluting effluent to discharge to this stretch of river causing the fish kill.

Inland Fisheries is continuing to investigate the cause of the fish kill and is working with Irish Water and the EPA in this regard.

A spokesperson for Irish Water told the Tipperary Star that Irish Water was liaising with the EPA and Inland Fisheries Ireland following the fish kill.

"A full investigation is being carried out and we are not in a position to provide a comment until this process has concluded," they said.