Specialists are working to clean up a river pollution incident thought likely to have originated from material in a manhole.
The alarm was raised on Friday when an East Lothian Council countryside ranger spotted an “unusual residue” that seemed to be discharging into the River Esk at Musselburgh.
Local people reported “heartbreaking scenes” – with birds such as swans covered in the substance and trying to clean themselves – and described an “overwhelming” smell in the area.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) launched an investigation and traced the likely source, a manhole filled with an unknown material leading to a watercourse.
By Saturday afternoon, Sepa said they were confident that it was no longer discharging into the water and East Lothian Council teams put absorbent pillows in place on Sunday morning to protect the watercourse.
Authorities advised people not to let their dogs go into the water as a precaution.
Scott Crawford, Sepa’s national duty manager, said: “Across the last 72 hours, specialist officers from Sepa and East Lothian Council have been responding to a pollution incident in the River Esk at Musselburgh.
“Whilst investigations are ongoing, officers have identified the location of the pollution discharge and are confident that it is no longer discharging into the water environment.
“However, it may take time to dissipate with continued water discolouration and odour, which is expected to decrease in the coming days.
“Council officers deployed absorbent pillows in order to protect the watercourse and working together, we’ve arranging for a contractor to remove pollution material from the likely source – a manhole filled with as yet unknown material leading to a watercourse.”
He added: “We know this pollution incident has been very concerning for local communities and are very grateful to local people for their information, support and understanding during this incident.”
Some people took to social media to describe the scenes.
Alexa Morrison tweeted: “Heartbreaking scenes at the mouth of the Esk after the oil spill. Birds covered and trying to clean themselves, the river still fully slick with chemicals. Awful to see.”
Ian Andrews posted on Twitter: “The burn is still flowing, the Esk still smells of diesel and the wildlife continues to suffer. It’s not just the swans; a Kingfisher I saw this morning looked decidedly scruffy and soiled.”
The Scottish SPCA have also been at the scene of the incident.
Sepa, supported by the council, are continuing to investigate the cause of the pollution, including how the material entered the manhole and watercourse.
Water samples, which will help identify the material, impact and potential source, have been taken for analysis at Sepa laboratories.
Sepa urged anyone with information to contact its 24 Hour Pollution Hotline on 0800 80 7060, via sepa.org.uk/report or to contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here