Angling and fishery organisations have welcomed an announcement from the UK's Natural Environment Minister Richard Benyon that plans are being drawn up to remove products containing the dangerous insecticide Chlorpyrifos from domestic sale. Mr Benyon was responding to strong representations from the Angling Trust, the national representative body for anglers, and fishery owners along the Kennet Valley in Wiltshire and Berkshire following last month's devastating pollution of all invertebrate life along a 15 kms stretch of this famous chalk stream by a tiny amount of chlorpyrifos which entered the river via the combined sewerage system. In a recent letter to Mr Benyon Angling Trust campaign chief Martin Salter wrote: “Experience from other countries as well as the catalogue of environmental disasters caused by chlorpyrifos, of which the upper Kennet is but the latest, must surely tell us that the current controls are simply not fit for purpose." In fact the Angling Trust wants to know why a lethal chemical like chlorpyrifos is allowed to be used anywhere near a river or watercourse. Apparently the 15 kms wipeout of invertebrates between Marlborough and Hungerford may have been caused by as little as a couple of spoonfuls and was almost certainly the result of an irresponsible domestic disposal. "We hope you will agree that the the sooner we follow the lead of Singapore and America and ban the domestic use of chlorpyrifos the better off our rivers will be.”
Source: Fish Update 28 August 2013
http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/20089/Ban_on_domestic_…
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