Five Fords site identified as ‘major pollution incident’ location – after previous ‘legal’ redaction

Welsh Water have confirmed they are ‘investigating an incident’ at their Five Fords side, that ‘impacted’ on the River Clywedog.

The ‘impact’ as explained by Natural Resources Wales was the death of thousands of fish after a ‘major pollution incident’.

Welsh Water said: “We’re investigating an incident earlier this week at our Five Fords site in Wrexham which has impacted on the River Clywedog. Incident is closed but working with Natural Resources Wales to establish what has caused this.”

Previously Natural Resources Wales (NRW) tweeted (now deleted) naming Five Fords as the location, however later pulled that statement and reissued it noting the exact location ‘cannot currently be confirmed for legal reasons’ – however did still confirm it was in the River Clywedog near Marchwiel.

NRW say a stretch of about nine kilometres of the river was affected, leading to a massive loss of fish – mainly brown trout but also bullhead, lamprey, stoneloach, salmon parr, chub, eel, bullhead, stickleback, perch and minnow.

People used twitter to try and get further details on what river was affected and why:

Hi Nicky. We are currently unable to name the source as this could jeopardise any future enforcement action or prosecution we take.

— Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru | Natural Resources Wales (@NatResWales) September 7, 2018

However that position later changed, with a Welsh Water tweet linking their site to the incident, as NRW had said themselves in the first place.

Hello. Dwr Cymru Welsh Water have released a statement on their own twitter feed @DwrCymru that provides some information. thanks Meinir

— Cyfoeth Naturiol Cymru | Natural Resources Wales (@NatResWales) September 7, 2018

Although the two incidents have been linked on the replies of the NRW twitter feed, the last update for those using the NRW website still does not confirm the location.

The Welsh Water website has a ‘latest news’ section that embeds their Facebook and Twitter feeds, we can’t spot reference to the incident on their Facebook page (or press release section) so this single tweet is the only mention of the major pollution incident.