A few months ago, I stood on a stone bridge overlooking the River Allow in Cork with Tom Anketell, a local angler from nearby Kanturk. The scene – serene and still, apart from a sprinkling of sun glitter on the water’s surface when the clouds passed – belied the unfolding catastrophe underneath.
A few days before, a chemical coagulant used in Uisce Éireann’s Freemount water treatment plant a few kilometres upstream had somehow entered the river. Within hours of the spill, locals had reported seeing fish trying to jump out of the river in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable suffocation as a result of the poisonous coagulant clogging their gills. It was, said Tom, a “harrowing” sight. Thousands died.
This river is home to wild trout, salmon, shad, eels, lamprey, many insect species, mammals such as otters, and birds like the dipper. It’s one of the few remaining places in Ireland where the near-extinct freshwater pearl mussel is found – a species so long-lived that some would have started life in the 1890s – which brought with it legal protection.
“Everything has been killed,” Tom told me, looking in disbelief at the waterway he had fished for more than 50 years. “The river is completely sanitised; there is nothing left. It is shocking and so sad.”
We have effectively given up hope for nearly half of our rivers, lakes and estuaries
Starlings’ unmissable performances mesmerise on dark winter days
Have you noticed that milk bottle caps are now tethered? There is good reason for that
Building houses can be compatible with the creation of new habitats for wildlife
The biggest problem facing our rivers, lakes and estuaries is nutrient pollution from agriculture and wastewater – they’re strangling the life out of our waters – and what happened in the River Allow may have wiped out years of restoration work to return the river to its former pristine state. Millions of euro of public money had poured into river projects, managed by the community-based rural development company IRD Dulhallow. About 96 local farmers got involved to help remove invasive species. River banks were fenced, and native trees were planted to capture and prevent nutrients from seeping into the river.
While the new water plan is full of good intentions and some positive actions, at the centre of it is an astonishing admission of past defeat and low future ambition
All the while, the pollution pressures continued throughout its course. In August 2022, sludge from the treatment plant was discharged into the river; a subsequent audit by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the incident said that the sludge was “not being adequately managed”. In 2019, the North Cork Creameries Co–Operative, which produces Ór-Real Irish butter and was recently added by the EPA to their “National Priority Sites” as one of the poorest performing licensed facilities, pleaded guilty to polluting the river with milk. The judge ordered them to give money to a local angling club.
Last month, after a two-year delay, the Government published Ireland’s latest water plan. It sets out how the authorities will reverse the damage to our degraded rivers, lakes, estuaries and coastal waters by 2027, as is their legal obligation.
It’s an urgent situation. Just 54 per cent of our waters currently meet either “good” or “high” status, meaning we’ve failed 46 per cent of our rivers, lakes and estuaries that aren’t meeting this standard. Instead, they’re dying.
We need three things: ambition, investment and action. Our population is booming, yet new housing developments are at a standstill because of an insufficient water infrastructure. Scientists repeatedly warn us of climate change’s potentially chaotic effects on river flow, temperature, and elevated flood and drought risks. Things will only get more complex; we need to move fast to secure clean, healthy water for the future.
But the new water plan sets the bar depressingly low and puts Ireland in the slow lane. While it is full of good intentions and some positive actions, at the centre of it is an astonishing admission of past defeat and low future ambition. By law, we need to restore 2,232 waterbodies by 2027, but the goal is 150-300 under this new plan. “It is unlikely that Ireland will achieve all of these objectives even with urgent, substantial and widely adopted measures,” the report admits. We have effectively given up hope for nearly half of our rivers, lakes and estuaries.
For too long, water policy has fallen between the cracks. On the one hand, public money is used to restore rivers while, at the same time, the authorities are clearly failing to implement policy and effectively enforce our water laws. There are, perhaps, far too many State agencies and departments which wrestle and wrangle in their siloes with their responsibilities for water. It has created an incoherent and ineffective approach to water governance, the result of which are in the data which shows that thousands of our waterways are failing. More than ever, we need a strong, powerful voice to provide robust oversight, be answerable to failures and willing to call in the agencies to force action. We need transparency and accountability.
On the banks of the Allow, I said goodbye to Tom and walked along the river. I met a local and asked her: “What now for the Allow?” She said the locals won’t give up on it, and will do everything to help it return to its former glory. I’ve heard a similar sentiment from local communities across Ireland that are advocating for their local waterways. We can but hope those in power will match their higher standards and ambition.