Probe into Kerry landslide after thousands of fish are killed

State fisheries experts launched an investigation today after thousands of fish were killed in a mudslide which also cut off roads and threatened water supplies.

Up to 3000 salmon and sea trout were wiped out after liquid peat seeped into the Rivers Smearlagh and Feale in north-east Kerry dealing a severe blow to fish stocks.

Kerry County Council urged around 3000 residents in the Stacks Mountain Region to boil tap water over fears the supply from the rivers could have been contaminated.

Shannon Regional Fisheries Board said its probe will focus on who was responsible for the landslide with a view to taking prosecutions in the courts to recover the costs of clearing the rivers.

The Stacks region has been earmarked as a wind farm area but locals warned construction on one such development threatened to cause landslides.

Eamon Cusack, chief executive of Shannon Regional Fisheries Board, said: “All I can say is that we’re following every lead and we’re obviously looking at the windfarm as a possible source of the start of the landslide.”

Mr Cusack said between 2000 and 3000 young salmon and sea trout were killed during Saturday’s landslide.

The fish in a tributary of the Smearlagh, a spawning stream of the Feale, were totally wiped out while stocks on the upper part of the Smearlagh were also affected.

The adult fish on the lower parts of the Smearlagh and Feale have been confirmed safe quelling fears the entire stock could have been wiped out causing an ecological catastrophe.

But while an all-out disaster has been averted Mr Cusack said the deaths of so many fish has dealt a severe blow to one of the country’s top salmon rivers.

“It will take a number of years before they can recolonise and rejuvenate that area,” he said.

“The River Feale has continually produced good stocks of salmon, so any blow to that would be very severe in the national terms.”

Kerry County Council said its engineers are trying to assess where the 1km landslide, which blocked roads and left some residents stranded, came from.

Some 25,000 people were initially given a boil notice after the main water supply for the area was affected.

A Kerry County Council spokesman said the Smearlagh flows into the Feale, the larger of the two rivers, and that the supply from the latter is now confirmed safe to use.

It services over 20,000 residents.

The local authority is trying to source alternative supplies of drinking water, including an unaffected tributary into the Smearlagh.

It’s almost five years since the country suffered its last major landslide.

Millions of euro of damage was caused after thousands of tons of rocks and mud crashed down on the tiny seaside village of Pollathomas, Co Mayo in September 2003 following torrential rain.

An empty house was demolished while a car carrying an elderly couple was swept into a ditch.

Emergency services spent days clearing roads and bridges and trying to restore electricity and water supplies.