Kerry County Council's attempts to bring in stringent water pollution by-laws to tackle agricultural pollution on Lough Leane, Killarney's largest and most famous tourist lake, have been delayed.
The delay is due to lack of support by councillors and public representatives on the policy committee dealing with the new draft by-laws.
The draft water pollution by-laws, based on recommendations from a three-year study of the lake, are considered too anti-farmer and too costly on individual farmers to implement. They have passed the public consultation stage.
South Western Regional Fisheries Board's senior environmental officer, Mr Michael McPartland, recently told a meeting of the fisheries board "there was widespread lack of support for the proposed by-laws in their current format from the public representatives".
The fisheries board's other senior environmental officer, Ms Patricia O'Connor, has asked that a phosphate fertiliser sales register be included in the by-laws. This would require retailers to submit an account to the council of the amount of fertiliser sold in the catchment area.
By-laws to improve the storage and management of waste on farms are considered essential to the €17 million clean-up of the lake.
The second interim report of the Lough Leane Catchment Monitoring and Management System set up in response to potentially toxic algal blooms which first occurred on the lake in 1997, identified the agricultural sector as the single biggest polluter. It noted "the nutrient loss from agriculture is a major contribution to the phosphorous loading and therefore to eutrophication in the Lough Leane catchment."
Domestic septic tanks, fats and oils from the tourist industry, along with detergents and forestry, were also contributing factors. But farms contributed around 47 per cent of phosphates, the study found. Only 200 of the 900 farms in the area are in the rural environmental protections scheme, REPS.
The by-laws require farmers in the area to implement various measures, some of them costly.Slurry spreading should take place as early as possible in the growing season, chemical fertilisers are to be limited and not spread near water courses, and so on. The by-laws also require air- and water-tight tanks with 24-week storage capacity for slurry.
Mr Michael Boyce, senior executive engineer in pollution control with Kerry County Council, said there were a number of sticking points, including the 24-week slurry storage requirement and the restrictions on slurry spreading. Although the by-laws were taking longer than he would like, "the process is ongoing," Mr Boyce said.
Councillor Michael Healy-Rae, chairman of the committee dealing with the by-laws, said "Farmers don't purposely pollute; they need assistance in implementing the measures."