Sir, - I wish to commend your Editorial of July 18th "Conserving Salmon". It is essential that urgent measures are taken to ensure that our salmon can return to spawn successfully.
The Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey, and other Ministers responsible also need to insure that salmon water quality standards are properly applied to our waters. For many years, Government Departments, local authorities, the EPA and fishery boards have mismanaged our waters by failing to ensure proper designation of our salmon and trout waters. This failure to apply the salmonid standard allows local authorities to continue to pollute our rivers from their poorly operated industrial waste and sewage plants.
For example, our most important drinking suppliers, the rivers Liffey and Shannon, have purposefully not been designated for the survival of salmon and trout, and a six-fold deterioration from the salmonid water quality standard is allowed as a result.
In 1998 the above agencies oversaw the introduction of the worst standards ever applied to our waters, allowing for a decline of about 16 per cent from the old 1912 British standards. This happened at a time when the public were being assured of great environmental improvements.
We should be aware that the proper application of the salmonid water quality standard would seriously benefit public health, by greatly reducing the amounts of toxins being discharged to these important rivers. - Yours, etc.,
Eoin O'Toole, Victoria Bridge, Naas, Co Kildare.