Hog Waste Spill Fouls Prime Scottish Fishing River

[hatrack]

"HUNDREDS of young sea trout and salmon are feared to have died after a huge quantity of pig slurry polluted a main tributary of the Ythan, one of Scotland’s leading sea trout rivers. Police are investigating claims that a release valve on a storage tank at the Pitrichie Piggery, at Whiterashes, near Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, close to the Bronie burn, had been deliberately turned on to allow the toxic slurry to escape from a 20,000-litre capacity tank.

The incident happened between 5pm on Monday and 2pm on Tuesday. Alexander Milne, the river superintendent of the Ythan District Fishery Board, told The Scotsman the burn had recently been restocked with thousands of young sea trout and salmon smolts, and he feared the worst. "Today I walked about 1,200 to 1,800 metres of the burn and I saw only two live fish," he said.

"We have just put in new fish into the Bronie. We stocked the burn only a fortnight ago with smolts and we stock the burn most years with young sea trout to try and get the burn back to the habitat it used to be. "The Bronie feeds the Ythan, from Ellon downstream to Newburgh, and Newburgh is one of the best sea trout fisheries there is. People are paying £2,000 a week to fish there, and you have to try and ensure you get the fish to come back."

Mr Milne went on: "Young sea trout have certainly been killed, but there is no sign so far that they have been killed in massive numbers. But, because of the recent heavy rain showers, the burn was up a bit from its normal level and, sometimes, when there is a pollution incident and fish are killed, they are washed out of the burn very quickly."

EDIT

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=512672005