...	Herald file A fish lies dead along the banks of the Little Sackville River.

By Bill Power / Staff Reporter

A hard lesson learned.

That's how Walter Regan, president of the Sackville Rivers Association sums up the pollution crisis in the Little Sackville River.

"So much damage could have been averted if the proper authorities responded faster," Mr. Regan said Friday.

A sudden influx of aluminum hydroxide overnight June 11 killed more than 4,000 fish - many of them salmon - wiping out the much of the results of the association's conservation efforts over 14 years.

"If anything good comes out of this, hopefully, it will be the establishment of protocols so what happened to the Little Sackville River won't happen again," Mr. Regan said.

Investigators with a regional environmental emergency team, which has representatives from all three levels of government, provided details Friday of the results of cleanup and containment efforts.

The timing of the response was also defended.

"These investigations take time. The response must be appropriate and collaborative," said Glen Warren, an inspector with the provincial Environment Department.

But Sackville MLA John Holm insisted delays were costly.

"Much of the damage could have been averted with a prompter response . . . but I don't think the authorities understood the seriousness of the situation," Mr, Holm said.

Area resident Dawn Smith said many of her neighbours along the Little Sackville River were upset about the slow response to reports of the problem and about the lack of information afterward about any potential threat to human safety.

"The authorities should have advised us quickly on the nature of the pollution. Most of us have kids that play along the river," Ms. Smith said.

The environmental damage is obviously a huge setback for the Sackville Rivers Association.

Mr. Regan said the association has struggled for years to raise public awareness of the value of the river to the community.

"When we started here, people were dumping construction materials and shopping carts and you name it into this waterway," he said.

He said members' biggest concern now is that the damage will stifle efforts to get the general public to view the Little Sackville as a real river.

"We've been working so hard to get people to recognize this as a valuable natural asset. Now, here it is, polluted and dead.

"The big challenge now will be to keep people thinking about it as a river."