Ireland to fail in meeting rivers and lakes status restoration goal, EPA warns

Ireland will fail to meet the EU and national goal of restoring all waters including rivers and lakes to good or better status by 2027, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned, saying agriculture was having a “disproportionate” impact on declining standards.

While improvements are being made in some areas, its latest assessment finds these are being offset by declines in water quality elsewhere with areas in the south and southeast of most concern. This is due to their proximity to intensive agriculture, notably dairy farms, which is causing “run-off”.

The EPA’s Water Quality in Ireland Report (2016-2021), which assesses Ireland’s rivers, lakes, estuaries, coastal and groundwaters, said “urgent and targeted action is required to reduce nitrogen emissions from agriculture” in these areas.

Speaking ahead of the publication of the report on Thursday night, EPA director general Laura Burke said Ireland had long “traded on the image of a clean, green island” to promote tourism and its agriculture sector. However, “we are trending in the wrong direction” in environmental standards.

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The farming and agriculture sector was having a “disproportionate impact on our water quality,” she told a panel talk on food sustainability organised by the Department of Agriculture in Dublin Castle on Thursday.

[ Rivers and lakes face pollution crisis caused by Ireland’s dairy industry ]

[ One farmer’s efforts to improve water quality ]

Just over half of surface waters are in satisfactory condition, the EPA report finds — having good or high ecological status sustains healthy ecosystems for fish, insects and plants.

Coastal waters had the highest percentage of waters in high or good ecological status (81 per cent) followed by lakes (69 per cent), rivers (50 per cent) and estuaries (36 per cent).

“Deterioration in estuaries and coastal waters is mostly along the southeast and southern seaboards and is due to agricultural run-off,” it adds.

Quality

Water quality in Ireland “is not as good as it should be”, while overall ecological health of surface waters has declined across all water body types since the last assessment (2013-2018).

Decline in water quality of rivers (1 per cent) and lakes (3 per cent) is relatively small, but the number of estuaries and coastal water bodies in satisfactory condition has decreased by almost 16 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.

“These declines are mostly along the southeast and southern coasts where nitrogen emissions from agricultural activities are having a significant negative impact on water quality.”

Excess nitrogen causes algal blooms in estuaries which can damage ecosystems, while excess nitrogen in drinking water can pose a risk to human health.

A revised nitrates action programme (NAP) is coming into operation in Ireland with tighter regulations on slurry spreading and on applying chemical fertilisers on land.

Dr Eimear Cotter, director of the EPA’s office of evidence and assessment, said: “The scale of the declines in our estuaries and coastal waters is alarming. In recent years the EPA highlighted that nutrient levels in our rivers and groundwaters are too high and that trends were going in the wrong direction.

“We are now seeing the impact of these emissions on our estuaries and coastal waters. Areas such as Cork Harbour, Wexford Harbour and the Slaney, Suir and Nore estuaries have lost their good water quality status. This directly impacts the marine biodiversity and ecological value in these areas,” she said.

The main pressures on Irish water quality are agriculture; physical changes such as land drainage and dredging; forestry activities; and discharges from urban wastewater. These activities can lead to run-off of nutrients, sediment and pesticides, thereby damaging habitats.

Ms Burke said: “We really need to stop talking about action and move to delivery. I’ve been in the agency a long time and I keep hearing ‘next year, next year, next year, we’re almost there’, we are not seeing it on the ground,” she said.

Companies that were involved in food and drink production were often among the worst offenders when it came to not complying with the EPA’s environmental regulations, she added.

Nitrates licence

Speaking ahead of the report’s publication, Tim Cullinan, president of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), said he did not want “all the blame to fall on agriculture” when it came to poor water quality.

Efforts had to be made to sustain life in rural Ireland, as the farming lobby official said “we don’t want everybody living in Dublin”.

In its report, the EPA called for urgent and targeted action to protect and restore water quality in the next River Basin Management Plan (2022-2027), and “full implementation of, and compliance with, the Good Agricultural Practice Regulations” which gives legal effect to the revised EU Nitrates Directive.

Ireland’s nitrates derogation is a licence to spread more nitrogen per hectare on land than is routinely permitted. Ireland applies to Europe for this every four years, based on its long growing season; fields can absorb it, and it will not put water quality at risk. Once granted by the European Commission, farmers apply annually to the Department of Agriculture for a derogation licence for their farms.

Many farmers are required to install additional slurry and soiled water storage under the revised NAP.

When nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus enter waterways they cause an increase in the growth of plants and algae. This in turn clogs up watercourses, uses up oxygen and harms other aquatic life such as insects and fish.

“Concentrations of these nutrients are far too high in many of our water bodies. 43 per cent of river sites, mostly in the south and southeast of the country, have high nitrate concentrations while nearly a third of river sites (30 per cent) and a third of lakes (33 per cent) have elevated phosphorus concentrations. Phosphorus levels are particularly high in lakes in the northeast of the country,” the EPA notes.

EPA programme manager Mary Gurrie, added: “Improvements in water quality are being made, particularly in the priority areas for action where there has been focused action to restore water quality in the past three years. This shows improvements to water quality can be made when actions are targeted. However, the gains made are being wiped out by declines in water quality elsewhere.”