Work underway with farmers to halt water decline in North Tipperary

FRAN Igoe of LAWPRO's South East Region team told a recent Council meeting that a lot of work is underway with farmers to try and halt and reverse the alarming decline in water quality in Tipperary's streams and rivers.
A couple of months ago LAWPRO (the Local Authority Waters Programme) revealed that the water quality in North Tipperary had declined to a reading of “Poor” and while there were a number of contributory factors the primary cause of this was the region's agricultural system.
Mr Igoe said LAWPRO is working with all stakeholders to try and turn this situation around. “We are working with farming co-ops, with Teagasc and Dairy Industry Ireland. We understand of course that water quality doesn't just include the dairy sector.
“Our ambition is to get 15,000 farmers involved with us. It's early days. Just over a thousand farmers have joined. Our fight-back against the deterioration of our beautiful streams and rivers is based on the strongest scientific evidence. The measures being put into farms are based on this scientific research. The measures are all about improving water quality from a farming point of view.
“I'm glad to report that a bit of work is going on with the Ballyfinboy River at the moment. We are working with the local Co Op and with the local farmers down there. It is a river which is frequented by the Croneen trout.”
Fran said the Water European Innovation Partnership (EIP) is central to LAWPRO's work. The EIP is a €60-million project,which hopes to bring about improvements in water quality with co-benefits for climate change and biodiversity.
“What we are talking about is water stewardship and protecting the public good,” he remarked, adding that an EPA report just before Christmas showed a very slight improvement in the water quality in Tipperary's watercourses. He showed the Councillors a series of maps in which a lot of the rivers and streams in North Tipperary are coloured (on the maps) yellow or brown “which means a less than adequate quality of water, which means there will be a problem for trout and salmon spawning. The yellow and brown colours also mean more algae.
“The maps show that agriculture is the dominant adverse pressure on water quality in North Tipperary.
“We have a significant water challenge in North Tipperary but not the industrial legacy which is more than a century old in Dublin. Therefore we can turn it around quite quickly in North Tipperary.”
Cllr Phyll Bugler said she liked the concept of nature-based solutions to improve water quality such as creating Rain Gardens and planting more trees; “but it can be hard to convince people to buy into this way of thinking.”
Cllr John Carroll said future generations “won't forgive us if we leave them polluted waterways. We have an abundance of streams, of waterways, in North Tipperary. It is a treasure trove. I would like to see more funding and more communities getting involved.”
Cllr Michael O'Meara commented that Fran's report makes for “sobering reading. There is a big challenge. We have to face it collectively. There is no point singling out any particular section of the community. In the 1970s the governmental advice to every farmer was to take out your hedges and make the land more suitable for modern machinery. Now I see a lot of farmers putting back in the hedges. People will rise to the various challenges. The amount of fertiliser which farmers are using has reduced.” He added that every two to three years farmers should be able to get their land tested free of charge. "In my area it is heavy draining land which doesn't lead to good water quality in the rivers going into the Shannon. Fishing groups and farmers talk to me. They want to do good. Sometimes we talk about the strange fact that Lough Derg's water quality is better than a lot of the North Tipperary rivers and streams which are feeding into the lake.”
Cllr Joe Hannigan said the Council should integrate LAWPRO's Nature-based solutions into the Council's infrastructural projects.
Fran outlined the monitoring system covering Lough Derg: “Inland Fisheries Ireland monitor the fish. Local authorities monitor the chlorophyll levels. The EPA monitors fauna and the rivers. LAWPRO's role is to investigate things and look for solutions.” He said it's not certain why Lough Derg's water quality is now better than the streams and rivers feeding into it. “Lough Derg had been graded poor. It's now Moderate, which is an improvement but is not satisfactory. It hasn't improved a whole lot and is still under pressure.”
Barry Murphy, Senior Executive Engineer, told the meeting that the drainage systems overseen by the Council throughout Lower Ormond are “struggling. It's obviously due to Climate Change. The drainage situation is changing rapidly and we can't ignore the challenge. In many cases we will have to increase pipe sizes.”