The Environmental Protection Agency’s latest verdict on water quality in Irish rivers, lakes and estuaries details a shocking level of decline, with few improvements over decades. The evidence becomes more damning with each of its six-yearly reviews of water bodies and its state of the Irish environment reports.
When it comes to the main culprits the pattern is clear. Nutrients from agriculture and poor wastewater treatment have led to 48 per cent of waters being rated below minimum acceptable standards. The sustained decline of estuaries is particularly concerning, with 70 per cent failing to achieve satisfactory status.
Some 44 per cent of rivers have too much nitrogen and a third of lakes have too much phosphorus. This is primarily attributable to intensive agriculture, a particular problem on free-draining soils in the south and east. Urban wastewater, urban run-off and forestry are also significant polluters. While there were welcome improvements in phosphorus pollution, which can be attributed to on-farm initiatives, these were overshadowed by decreases in overall ecological quality of waters.
The report could not have come at a worse time for the Government and Irish farmers as Ireland attempts to retain its EU nitrates derogation. With the clock ticking, clarity for the agrifood sector will be needed before year end. The EPA findings undermine the case for retention or for allowing higher levels of fertiliser and slurry to be spread on land because of our pasture-based system. The Minister for Agriculture has called for an extension, based on a new requirement that benefiting farmers will comply with the EU habitats directive. This now looks like a specious argument.
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The EPA assessment comes in a year when Ireland experienced what was probably the Republic’s worst fish skill, on the river Blackwater in Co Cork. Despite a multi-agency investigation, the cause was not identified. That raises multiple questions about the State’s ability to respond to once-off pollution or possible disease outbreaks and to monitor water quality. While each agency’s role is clearly defined, the collective response – both in timing and co-ordination – has been inadequate.
The Blackwater was a vulnerable waterway due to accumulating environmental stresses and persistent discharges from EPA-licensed facilities breaching their operating conditions, with little by way of penalty or prosecution. The 2019-2024 EPA report would suggest a great many water bodies are equally susceptible.
The EU Commission, in reaching its decision on derogation, will no doubt consider all these factors. But they also highlight consequences beyond a sectoral interest. Continuing deterioration of rivers, lakes and estuaries risks arriving at a point where they become ecologically dead.
