Dr. Tom Ryan:

I thank the committee for inviting the EPA to contribute to this important discussion. I am joined by EPA programme managers Pamela McDonell, Noel Byrne and Jenny Deakin, who have been involved in the investigation for the EPA and in the production of our report on the incident. In the interests of time, I am going to read an abridged version of our opening statement.

The extensive fish mortalities that occurred on the Blackwater river in Cork during August are a serious harm to the local fish stocks and have had an unjust and negative impact on the local communities. The devastation of damaged carcasses of thousands of dead fish floating in the protected waters of the Blackwater or tangled in the weeds of any of our country's rivers or lakes are events that are not to be tolerated. When such detrimental incidents occur, as on the Blackwater, and where causation can be established and the wrongdoer identified, they should be held to account, and it is incumbent on all the State agencies with responsibility for these incidents to do all in their power to identify the cause and the wrongdoer and to bring them to account. This can only be achieved by following and assessing the available evidence, data and science. The EPA's primary role in the investigation was to assess whether EPA-regulated sites within the region of interest could have been responsible through their water discharge activities and to take action against any operator found to be at fault.

The EPA first became aware of the serious fish kill on the morning of 12 August and immediately mobilised resources in the Blackwater catchment to investigate. The EPA’s investigation encompassed the deployment of three teams of inspectors to EPA-regulated sites in the Mallow and Kanturk area within an hour of the EPA becoming aware of the fish mortalities. There was an immediate expansion of the investigation on 22 August to include a broader timeframe and geographic scope within the Blackwater catchment. This was in response to preliminary fish postmortem results from the Marine Institute. The EPA completed 41 inspections of 31 facilities in the catchment, collected 40 samples and assessed operational practices and monitoring data associated with ten industrial sites, 17 wastewater treatment facilities and four drinking water plants. We completed five invertebrate quality surveys in the Kanturk to Mallow area on 12 August and 1 and 2 September.

Of the 31 EPA-regulated sites investigated, 27 had either no discharges or had compliant discharges during the weeks prior to 12 August. However, four of the 31 facilities investigated had discharges that were not compliant with licence requirements in July and August and one small wastewater facility with a certificate of authorisation was operating above operational capacity. These issues are dealt with in detail in the EPA’s report which is contained in full in the annexe to the interagency report. All these issues remain the subject of ongoing enforcement action, which is separate and distinct from the investigation into the causality of the fish mortalities on the Blackwater.

To determine if there was a causal link between the fish mortalities and EPA-regulated sites, the EPA assessed the relevant monitoring and operational data for the sites and the impact of the non-compliant discharges on receiving water quality in the period 28 July to 12 August. Overall there is no evidence from the ecological water quality data that there was a chronic water quality problem in the Blackwater catchment in advance of or following the fish mortalities. This suggests that the cause of the fish mortalities was a short-term pollution event, which may have been localised in extent, and was not due to an underlying chronic water quality problem.

The detailed analysis and assessment of discharges from all 31 EPA-regulated sites, including industrial sites and Uisce Éireann-controlled urban wastewater discharges and drinking water plants during July and August 2025, does not support a causal link between these activities and the serious fish mortalities found in the River Blackwater.

One of the 31 EPA-regulated sites investigated by the EPA was North Cork Creameries, NCC, situated on the River Allow near Kanturk. While NCC was an important focus of that investigation, it is specifically mentioned in this opening statement as it attracted significant public attention and speculation throughout the course of the current investigation. NCC is a site with a history of failure to consistently achieve compliance with its licence discharge conditions and was already the subject of significant enforcement activity by the EPA prior to the incident, culminating in a prosecution which concluded in April 2025. Non-compliances were detected in the wastewater treatment plant discharge from NCC in the June to August period and were serious and entirely unacceptable. The licence breaches arose primarily due to a lack of organised management or control of wastewater treatment plant activities, a lack of appropriate expertise to resolve significant operational issues, a failure to appropriately generate, manage, maintain and use critical data sets to inform corrective actions and a disregard for licence requirements and licence limits.

However, despite the seriousness of these issues and the significance of licence breaches at NCC, the EPA’s assessment, as set out in our report, does not support a causal link between the NCC’s discharges into the River Allow and the fish mortalities in the Blackwater. In summary, this reasoned conclusion is based on an assessment of the yard drainage configuration and operation at the site; an assessment of the load to wastewater treatment plant operational data; an assessment of the toxicity of NCC discharge to fish in the context of the prevailing environmental conditions during the period of interest; and an assessment based on the proximity of site to dead fish where no dead or marked fish were observed in the River Allow during the period of interest, noting that there is a stretch of 4 km river water between the NCC discharge point on the Allow and where the Allow enters the Blackwater.

The EPA regulates, through authorisation and enforcement, almost 900 industrial and waste facilities, over 1,000 wastewater authorisations and approximately 750 drinking water treatment plants, with almost 1,800 inspections carried out across these sectors annually. The EPA does so without fear or favour, in the interests of the public and in the protection of the environment. It does so by detailed assessment and by drawing reasoned conclusions based on the available evidence, data and science as it has done in this investigation. To do otherwise would be to draw conclusions based on speculation which would be both environmentally irresponsible and regulatorily negligent.

The detailed analysis and assessment of all 31 EPA-authorised sites does not support a causal link between these activities and the serious fish mortalities found in the River Blackwater. Throughout the investigation, the EPA worked closely with our colleagues in Inland Fisheries Ireland, Cork County Council and others, both bilaterally and through an interagency group.

It is important to acknowledge the EPA also received videos and pertinent information from concerned members of the public in relation to discharges from EPA-regulated sites during the investigation period. The EPA acknowledges with gratitude the work and commitment of those concerned groups in contributing to the EPA’s investigation. The issues raised by those members of the public have been considered in the EPA’s assessment.

I assure the committee that the EPA continues to rigorously enforce environmental protection legislation and authorisation requirements at all EPA-regulated sites in the Blackwater catchment area and across the country.