AN environmental group busy w orking on projects throughout the Blackburn, Darwen and Hyndburn districts has hit back at a new report highlighting the area as the region's 'dirty water' blackspot.

The Environment Agency report highlights Lancashire as suffering the worst water record in the North West, with more than four times as many serious pollution incidents as other areas.

The report, Water Pollution Incidents in England and Wales 1997, shows that 621 incidents of pollution were reported to the Agency throughout Lancashire in 1997.

Despite a 28 per cent drop in the number of incidents in Lancashire since 1996, the figure has more than doubled for major incidents causing problems such as killing large numbers of fish, a long term reduction in water quality or requiring substantial work to clean-up.

The figure has risen by 157 per cent, from seven major incidents in 1996 to 18 major incidents in 1997.

Groundwork East Lancashire works across the region to promote regeneration schemes and environmental clean-up campaigns. Their work involves extensive clean-up campaigns on the River Darwen.

David Hortin, Darwen River Valley Initiative Co-ordinator at Groundwork, said: "We are working in partnership with the Environment Agency and North West Water to clean up the River Darwen. It is getting cleaner since the pollution incident in January.

"We had to take out a lot of large fish after the river was polluted, which shows how good the water quality was before the incident. The river is getting much better now, through the many river clean-ups which we are working on."

In the North West during 1997, 11 convictions were secured for water pollution incidents which occurred during the year.

And last year a Rishton farmer was jailed for two months after causing pollution in a local stream.

It was the first time a custodial sentence had been imposed for a water pollution offence under the Water Resources Act 1991.

Jeremy Frost, the Environment Agency's North West Regional Environment Protection Manager, said: "We are committed to continuing to reduce water pollution incidents by providing advice to industry, farmers and individuals, and by taking a tough line with those who cause pollution.

"Good examples of our pollution prevention work include farm visits, pollution prevention packs developed for industry and the Oil Care Campaign.

"The Agency will be tough on those who don't heed the advice and polluters will face a bill for recovery of costs as well as possible prosecution."

The Agency's emergency hotline for reporting incidents is (0800) 807060.

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