ENVIRONMENTAL chiefs are considering what legal action to take following December’s major pollution incident on the River Teifi which killed hundreds of salmon and brown trout.

The alarm was raised after dog walkers and anglers reported seeing scores of dead fish in discoloured water along a stretch of the river between Tregaron and Lampeter.

The incident was described as “an environmental disaster” by Salmon & Trout Conservation Cymru, and Natural Resources Wales officials subsequently traced the source of the pollution to a farm in the Tregaron area.

Ben Wilson, NRW’s Ceredigion operations manager, confirmed this week that their investigation was ongoing.

“Our rivers provide a home to rich, diverse and valuable species of plants and animals so it’s devastating when pollution incidents happen,” he said. “We continue to investigate the incident on the Teifi and we have gathered evidence to help decide on the appropriate legal action we need to take.

“Our initial surveys showed that salmon and trout had been affected, but we will be carrying out more surveys over the spring and summer to better understand the long-term impacts and the rate of recovery.

“Given the ongoing nature of the investigation we are not in a position to provide further details at this time.” 

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