A horrific blood pollution crisis in a pristine Scots river has worsened with dead fish now spewing into the water from sewage pipes.
The mystery around the stomach-churning incident in the River Lochy, Fort William, deepened with what campaigners claimed are wrasse fish – often used in industrial salmon farming – found floating on the water. Mowi Scotland which operates the nearby Blar Mhor salmon processing plant has denied responsibility.
A probe is under way by eco watchdog Sepa. We told yesterday how streams of disgusting bloody waste stinking of fish started flowing into the Highland river over the weekend – with reports of further grisly discharges on Monday night.
Local man Michael Armstrong took to Facebook to post shocking videos showing the contaminated river again running dark red with bloody discharge – and this time, with dead fish floating on the water’s surface. On Monday night, he wrote: “Hang up your wet suits…
“Filmed tonight at 1830. Now with dead fish floating around. Smells vile and… what looks like scales floating and laying on the bed. The reek goes across to the far bank and downstream as far as the eye can see.”
Further footage was shared with the Record by campaigner Jamie Moyes, who visited the scene for the Abolish Salmon Farming activist group. It shows large stretches of the river surface blanketed in material he said he first thought was “coarse sand” until realising it was huge amounts of fish scales – believed to be from salmon.
And Moyes documented multiple dead fish floating in the water near sewer pipes under a flood defence wall – the source of the bloody wastewater. He believes the fish are wrasse, used as “cleaner fish” in the salmon industry to remove farmed salmon of lice by eating them.
Moyes said: “After I left, there was another huge bulk of blood that people filmed so it seems to be coming in different amounts at different times. The pollution still seems to be leaking into it constantly. It was absolutely stinking with the amount of scales that were on the riverbed, but also loads and loads floating down the surface of the river.
“I wouldn’t like to think how much has actually been pouring into that river, especially through the night. With the other pictures there, you can just see the amount of blood. It’s not a small amount, it’s a huge amount.
“There’s no way that can just be a case of someone’s tipped something down the drain by accident. It’s a horrific amount.”
Norwegian salmon giant Mowi, which operates a processing facility in nearby Blar Mhor industrial estate in Fort William, has said it investigated the incident and found no evidence the waste had come from them. In a statement on Monday, the firm said: “Mowi is confident that the discharge did not come from its facility at the Blar Mhor industrial estate.
“Mowi has checked all its operating procedures as well as the effluent system and CCTV. The effluent is cleaned onsite by a water treatment process that removes contaminants from water.
“Following this process, the effluent is only discharged to the Scottish Water treatment works at Caol Point.”
It added: “Mowi is not the only business which processes this type of material on the Blar Mhor Industrial Estate but is the only one regulated by Sepa.” Mowi and Sepa were approached for additional comment.
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