IT IS a misty evening at Castlelough in Co Tipperary. Lough Derg looks moody in the dusk, with reeds swaying in the current and the call of water birds only sound to be heard. But what's this? A sign warning visitors that the water is unfit for bathing.
How can this be? Bord Failte's brochure, Cruising Ireland, advertises Ireland's rivers and lakes as "some of the cleanest waters in Europe", and waxes lyrical over "this pure environment".
The sign was put up by North Tipperary County Council last summer because the faecal coliforms in the water were above acceptable levels, says Frank Lewis, a committee member of Save Our Lough Derg (SOLD): "This means that the water was contaminated by excrement from either an animal or a human source." There is a similar sign in another lakeside beauty spot not far away at Terryglass.
The signs refer to bathing conditions in the lake last summer, says Pat Crowe, senior engineer in sanitary services at North Tipperary County Council. The water will be tested again this year to see if it is necessary to keep the signs up for this year's bathing season.
Lough Derg is the last lake on the Shannon, says Pat Crowe, so it ends up as the repository for waste discharged into the river from upstream. He cites the report on pollution in Lough Derg written by Jim Bowman of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), stating that 86 per cent of the pollution in Lough Derg comes from upstream:
"After it enters the lake through Portumna Bridge, the prevailing wind blows the waste to the eastern shore of the lake. Castlelough is particularly vulnerable because it is a sheltered little bay and things tend to stay there."
According to the Department of the Environment, the most recent overview of the water quality of the Shannon, for the period 1991 to 1994, found that only 0.6 per cent of the river was seriously polluted, and one third of the river was moderately or slightly polluted. Lough Derg and Lough Ree, the two largest lakes on the Shannon, were found to be sensitive areas, and a major programme of investment is under way to upgrade - sewage treatment facilities within their catchments. In the case of Lough Derg, this means an allocation of approximately £30 million over the next three years, 85 per cent of which will come from the Cohesion Fund.
Meanwhile, Pat Crowe is of the opinion that the offputting signs at Castlelough and Terryglass - will not make any difference to tourists who, at this time of the year, are anglers rather than swimmers. But, "There are no fish!" was the frustrated refrain of a French angler who was visiting Dromineer, on the eastern shore of Lough Derg, when this reporter visited the area two weeks ago.
Michael Waterstone, chairman of the Scariff, Whitegate and Mountshannon angling clubs, and also a member of SOLD, says: "Lough Derg used to be renowned for its wild brown trout." He recalls how, in the 1970s, it was easy to catch 20 trout in a day on the lake: "If it was May, you could see a trout on every square yard of the lake, feeding on the surface; now, if you see one trout in half a mile, you're lucky." He is particularly concerned about the tributaries of Lough Derg, which are the spawning grounds of the trout: "One spillage of pollution in a stream will wipe out fish stocks for three to four years."
Although the coarse fishing on Lough Derg is still good, he remembers seeing dead perch, covered with sores, in 1993, and in 1994, "we saw the bream die too". He recalls a pike fishing competition last year, where "the fishing was poor. After three days, the winner had caught 60lb of fish. In former years it could have been 160lb". The water was so opaque that "an angler dropped a 2lb pike in two feet of water and couldn't see it".
Adding to Mike Fitzsimon, the environmental officer with the Shannon Regional Fishery Board, the number of fish kills on the Shannon has increased from seven in 1994 to 15 last year. There were prosecutions on foot of these and other incidents, amounting to 23 in 1994 and 11 last year. The offenders included farmers, industries and local authorities (the latter were prosecuted for sewage pollution).
The fish die because of lack of oxygen in the water. This is caused by either organic waste (which bacteria feed on, and then multiply, thereby using up the oxygen in the water) or by excessive amounts of nutrients, mostly phosphorus, which encourage the growth of algae and other plant life, leaving no oxygen for the fish. Even more oxygen is used up when underwater plant life dies due to light deprivation because of the algal blooms above. This process is known as eutrophication. Phosphorus enters the water from artificial fertiliser slurry sewage and industrial waste. Detergents, used either in households or by industries, are a major source of phosphorus.
Frank Lewis's wife, Bid, runs a guesthouse. Most of her customers are anglers, and because the fishing has deteriorated so severely on the lake, her business is suffering: "One of my regular guests, an English angler, told me that if he doesn't catch any fish this year, he won't be coming back."
THE Shannon is the longest river in Britain and Ireland rising in Derrylahan in Cavan and flowing 350 km south wards through Limerick city.
It is considered by Bord Failte to be, potentially, a major tourist amenity for Ireland. Lough Derg alone brought in an estimated £10 million from tourism in 1993, and Shannon Development wants to increase that figure to £20 million by 1999.
Bord Failte's Tourism Development Plan 1994-1999 includes the marketing of "the Shannon corridor" with a "high quality brand image", with plans to invest in the further development of the cruising sector. After hill walking apparently the second most popular activity amongst overseas visitors to Ireland in 1994 was angling, so it is not surprising that Bord Failte also wants to expand the number of tourists who come for angling holidays on the Shannon.
Exact figures for how many visitors the Shannon receives are not available but, according to Bord Failte, 24,000 overseas visitors alone spent at least one night in a cabin cruiser in 1994. The new Shannon Erne waterway has added to the number of visitors, attracting 3,000 boats in its first year of operation 1994, and 4,000 last year.
Joe Russell is managing director of she Emerald Star Line, which operates 230 cruisers on the Shannon. He says that his customers are not complaining about the water quality: "Obviously it is a concern for our business that the Shannon is as clean as possible. But people keep coming back. They love it. And from what I understand, the Shannon is in much better shape than the vast majority of lakes and rivers in Europe.
Lough Derg and Lough Ree are clearly not in good shape, but it is generally agreed that the upper reaches of the Shannon, including Lough Allen, are clean and well stocked with fish. Yet John Dunne, of Carrick on Shannon, who works with the Shannon Barge Line, taking tourists out on the river during the summer, is not so sure: "I've seen big algal blooms on Lough Key, like pea soup. Tourists are flabbergasted to see this sort of thing. They think of Ireland as clean and green. It is really hard for tourism.
"Retention of a pure environment is a must in selling Ireland as a visitor destination," writes Jim Bowman in his report on Lough Derg. He found that Lough Derg's water quality had deteriorated between 1981 and 1993, due to excessive nutrients, such as phosphorus, getting into the lake from agricultural activities and discharges of domestic and industrial waste. To bring water quality in Lough Derg back to the level of the late 1970s, there has to be a reduction of about half of the volume of nutrients now going into the lake.
BOWMAN stresses that the rivers which flow into both Loughs Derg and Ree are responsible for the inflow of most of these unwanted nutrients. In the case of Lough Ree, this includes the rivers Camlin, Hind, Rinn, Inny and Tang. According to the Lough Ree Conservation Group, the River Hind is in a severely cutrophic condition: "It is apparently the second most polluted river in Western Europe," says Declan Walsh, who is on the committee.
"The weed growth in the Hind was so dense last summer, I saw a small terrier dog literally walk across the river," adds Hugh Hanley, who is also on the committee. Sean Kelly of Athlone Anglers notes that the Hind used to be "a fantastic nursery for trout, but not any more". "The long term effect of negligence will kill the tourist industry," says Hugh Hanley. "Bord Failte's image of the man in the tweed cap with his fishing rod is just not true any more. Owen Egan, chairman of the Lough Ree Group, concludes: "The Shannon waterway is vital to the life of the midlands. The river has to be seen as an entire entity. We need one body responsible for the Shannon as a whole."
The current philosophy, believes Sean Kelly, is "pass the buck". Declan Walsh adds that this is not surprising, given that there are 22 statutory bodies involved in the river, which runs through counties - different measures are being taken which means that the tide is turning for Lough Derg, and ultimately for the rest of the Shannon. The £30 million plan for the Lough Derg catchment area involves the provision of 10 sewage treatment plants, some of them with phosphorus reduction facilities. There is also a new by law about to come into effect whereby it will be illegal for cruisers to pump their own raw sewage into the lake. Boats must be equipped with holding tanks for sewage, which they can then dispose of in 11 newly built, pump out facilities at various points along the river.
Phosphorus getting into the water through run off from farms is now being brought under control with Nutrient Management Planning and the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS), says Dr Owen Carton of Teagasc: "We are advising farmers not to apply any more fertiliser than they actually need. By doing this we could potentially not only contribute to cleaning up the Shannon, but also save farmers about £25 million per year.
A new amendment being introduced through the Waste Management Bill (currently before the Seanad) will allow local authorities to serve on farmers requiring them to establish nutrient management plans to prevent water pollution. Some 30,000 farmers have received grants under the Control of Farm Pollution grant system, funded, by the Department of Agriculture with the EU.
"It is inevitable that controls will tighten up," says Martin Feric of Teagasc, who is based in Scariff, in east Clare. There has been a good uptake of REPS in his area, which has involved small to medium farmers applying for grant aid to make their farming practices more environmentally friendly. "It has been a marvellous opportunity for, them to modernise their farms," he says. In return, farmers must ensure that there is no run off from the likes of silage or slurry, by changing from opens concrete yards to covered tanks and roofed sheds for storage.
PLANS are afoot for eight new sewage treatment plants in the Lough Ree catchment area, and more in the Cavan/Leitrim area. The Department of the Environment is still waiting for a decision on Cohesion Fund assistance for these.
Sean Kelly of the Lough Ree Conservation Group is impatient for these plans to be realised, pointing out that there is not much point in cleaning up Lough Derg without making a similar effort upstream: "No matter how hard they work to clean up Lough Derg, if they don't clean up the rest of the Shannon, Lough Ree will continue to deteriorate, and Derg will continue to inherit the filth from upstream."
In the meantime, Frank Lewis of SOLD is confident that improvements will begin to show within a few years, so that "my grandchildren will be able to know, enjoy and love the water as I did when I was a boy".
