Why a cyanide spill shut a canal for 10 months

The final section of a canal that shut after a toxic chemical spill is to reopen, but why has it taken 10 months?

About 4,000 litres (879 gallons) of sodium cyanide and other chemicals leaked into the Walsall Canal in August leading to 12-mile (19km) closure.

Fish were killed, boaters were trapped and people were asked to avoid towpaths from Walsall lock flight to the flights at Rushall/Ryders Green and Perry Barr, in Birmingham.

Since then, The Canal and River Trust has been working with different agencies to limit the spread of the spill and protect the ecosystem. The source was confirmed as Anochrome Ltd, which deals in surface coatings and sealing.

The towpaths and most of the waterway reopened in October but a section in Pleck remained shut so it could be dredged to remove and safely dispose of 526 tonnes of cyanide-contaminated silt.

Guy Fearenside, lead volunteer from the Canal and River Trust, said the waterway could not fully reopen earlier as when boats used it they would have stirred up the silt, bringing back the pollution.

"But now it's been dredged, it's free to open back up again," he said.

A crowd funder organised by the charity raised about £25,000 to help wildlife after the spill.

Litter picking has also resumed, now the pollution has been contained and removed.

"As we've come along to stretches, because there is cyanide in the water, we said we can't do any water borne litter or you can't take anything out of the water, just in case of any contamination," James Harrison, also from the trust, said.

"So essentially, we are kind of cutting back on anything that has grown and just doing anything we couldn't have done over the past few months."

There are hopes the reopening might encourage more people to use the Walsall stretch.

"I think everybody is really pleased that they can now use it," Bob Fox from the Birmingham Canal Navigations Society said.

"It tends to be one of the lesser parts of the Birmingham navigations so we are encouraging and promoting the use of it."

Henriette Breukelaar from the Canal and River Trust said the incident had a lasting impact.

"The cleanup has so far cost our charity £100k's of funds that would have been used to repair our canals. We will seek to reclaim this money from the polluting company and invest it in caring for the canals in the West Midlands.

Anochrome Ltd said it continued to offer its "sincere apologies" for the incident and it had "covered costs for remedial work on the canal throughout the entire process".

The company added that it was delighted the waterway was set to reopen fully.

An Environment Agency spokesperson said its investigation into the incident was still ongoing.

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