POLLUTION MYSTERY LASTEST:

Environment Agency experts have now identified the chemical that has caused enormous damage to a 15-kilometre section of the River Kennet.

“The mystery pollution is no longer a mystery,” ARK director Charlotte Hitchmough told Marlborough News Online. “It is a chemical called chloryrifos – a pesticide which is very harmful to aquatic life, particularly invertebrates.

“Sold under a variety of brand names, it looks as though it has entered the sewer network from a drain, and arrived at the Sewage Treatment Works and got from there into the river. “Thames Water are now working their way up the sewer network to try to locate at what point it poured into the Kennet.”

According to Wikipedia:

Chlorpyrifos (IUPAC name: O,O-diethyl O-3,5,6-trichloropyridin-2-yl phosphorothioate) is a crystalline organophosphate insecticide. It was introduced in 1965 by Dow Chemical Company and is known by many trade names (see table), including Dursban and Lorsban.

It acts on the nervous system of insects by inhibiting acetylcholinesterase.

Chlorpyrifos is moderately toxic to humans and chronic exposure has been linked to neurological effects, developmental disorders, and autoimmune disorders.
Exposure during pregnancy retards the mental development of children, and most use in homes has been banned since 2001 in the U.S. In agriculture, it remains “one of the most widely used organophosphate insecticides”, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

See also: http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Actives/chlorpyr.htm