Polish pm vows to bring justice over pollution of Oder river

The Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said on Thursday that the pollution of the Oder River is a scandal and promised that everything would be done to explain the matter and bring the culprits to justice.

The Environmental Protection Inspectorate WIOS in Wroclaw west of Poland has notified the local prosecutor of an ecological disaster that has hit the Oder, Poland's second longest river. Tonnes of dead fish have been washed up along with other animals such as beavers.

Since the first reports came in from anglers in late July, the Wroclaw branch of WIOS has been investigating the matter of dead fish in the Oder.

In a Facebook post, Morawiecki wrote that care for the environment and Poland's waters was particularly important at a time of climate change and that we will do everything for the case to be investigated, clarified and the guilty severely punished. The prime minister said that Deputy Infrastructure Minister Grzegorz Witkowski and the President of Polish Waters Przemyslaw Daca would travel to the affected region on Thursday.

I discussed the matter with Infrastructure PAP Minister Marek Grobarczyk. Morawiecki said that all state services would be acting with the utmost intensity on the case, because the issue is being worked on by officers of the Chief Inspector of Environmental Protection.