News coverage and the immediate emergency response to this major incident have focused on public safety – contacting boat owners in the affected area and advising local residents to stay off the towpath, centred around Pleck in Walsall.
We have been part of the swift emergency response and worked around the clock with the lead agencies to secure the canal and contain the contamination to avoid it spreading further along the canal.
Yesterday morning on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, our chief executive Richard Parry condemned the pollution spill and shared our exasperation and distress. Our teams pick up the pieces following hundreds of pollution incidents each year, albeit instances of this nature and on this scale are rare. He also looked ahead to the recovery phase where we will need to assess the damage that’s been caused – most notably to the fish, but of course, the impact on other wildlife – the birds and mammals – along the canal.
We’d like to thank our team and the partners involved in the multi-agency response for such a tremendous collective effort from Walsall and Sandwell Councils, the Police, the Fire Service and many specialist agencies providing technical advice and support.
The testing regime undertaken by the Environment Agency is providing regular information on the spread of the pollution spill along the canal, and with dams in place to contain it, we have been able to reduce the impacted area, enabling the majority of the canal to reopen. With public safety the absolute priority, reopening stretches of canal can only happen once the testing and advice of our agency partners declare it completely safe to do so.
