Sir, – Lorna Siggins' articles on the proposed Shannon water abstraction are most alarming when examined against our past record of water management.
This project would be unsustainable and uneconomic and make an already bad problem worse.
I have been a life-long salmon fisherman and have now embarked on a last-ditch mission to save the Atlantic wild salmon. Some of the measures needed include the closure of salmon rivers for fishing of wild salmon for the entire western seaboard of Europe for 10 years; the closure of salmon fishery hatcheries, and the removal of non-productive power stations and dams to restore natural river courses and flows, thus mitigating flooding.
I have witnessed the virtual extinction of Atlantic salmon in Irish rivers and can recall a time when you could cross a river via the backs of salmon in times of abundance in salmon runs.
I was chair of Ireland’s driftnet association and a member of the National Salmon Commission (2000-2005) which failed to address the catastrophic decline.The primary source of wipe-out was the indiscriminate drift-netting at sea for over 30 years. This “ended” when all sea drift-netting was stopped in 2006. A decade later, there are no positive results! The necessary action was not taken in time and Atlantic wild salmon may be doomed beyond recovery, in most Irish rivers, unless a last concerted effort be made.
To persist with discredited river management and inadequate flood abatement – compounded by abstraction – is to remained cursed by flooding.
Dublin and Ireland do not have a water supply problem, rather a water treatment problem. – Yours, etc,
PATSY PERIL
Coonagh,
Limerick.