A businessman says pollution is threatening his livelihood.

Danny Parker, owner of the Bronte Caravan Park in Halifax Road, Keighley, says the state of the River Worth is damaging his business. Mr Parker says swathes of pollution in the river flowing through his 50-acre site are causing alarm among his customers and jeopardising his takings.

Mr Parker first noticed the large amount of foam floating on the surface of the river last Thursday and called the Environment Agency.

"I rang the emergency number and they had had a dozen calls by the time I rang them," he says. "It is an unbelievable sight - all that going through a nature park."

Mr Parker has experienced pollution in the river before and is getting increasingly frustrated.

"They still can't get their act together," he says. "It's getting worse year on year.

"Something is definitely going wrong."

Officials from the environment agency came to the caravan park to investigate the pollution and took chemical samples to try to determine its source.

An Environment Agency spokesman says: "We were alerted to some extensive foaming over a half-mile stretch of river. It was rather a spectacular sight.

"We are very concerned for the wildlife there because we believe it is a detergent of some sort."

Mr Parker says: "To see all this foam in this day and age is mad. Where it has come from I don't know. To see a bath tub in the middle of a nature park is terrible."

Many of the 300 tourists staying at his holiday park were concerned at the state of the river.

Mr Parker says: "One German visitor said 'Your British industry does more damage to the countryside than our Luftwaffe'."

Mr Parker, who owns the fishing rights on the three-quarter-mile stretch of the river, says he would prosecute if the fish stock is at all depleted by the pollution He adds: "So far we've found no dead fish in my three-quarters of a mile."

An Environment Agency biologist returned to the river on Tuesday after the foam had disappeared to take a 'kick sample' to determine if the discharge has effected the river's invertebrate life.

But Mr Parker is concerned the environment agency's delay was too long to take any useful samples from the river. "Why go two days after it's cleaned up?" he asks. "That doesn't weigh up."

However, Andy Mollitt, a Bradford council environmental protection officer, says: "Any effect that the discharge has had will be quite longstanding whether the foam has disappeared or not.

"We know the bare bones of what happened but we still need to know the details. We will be conducting interviews at our offices in Leeds with the parties concerned."

Mr Mollitt says a number of companies are involved in the discharge and that a prosecution may be brought against those responsible.

Because of the possible legal proceedings Mr Mollitt refused to name the companies, but if they are found guilty they could face a maximum fine of £30,000.

Opinion, page 10

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