Group seeks injunction over fish farm pipe

Environmentalists are seeking a High Court injunction to stop a fish farming company extracting water from a Connemara lake so they can save farmed fish at risk of dying from disease.

Marine Harvest installed a 3km pipe at Loughaunare following advice from its veterinary surgeons as it needed freshwater to stop the spread of amoebic gill disease that is damaging its fish stocks at Kilkieran Bay. It says the temporary pipe will allow water to be transported to a large boat where infected fish can swim to treat their condition.

But Friends of the Irish Environment said Kilkieran Bay is “host to an exceptionally diverse range of animal and plant life”, and home to rare marine life, birds and wintering geese and the pipeline will damage their habitats.