Survey helps pinpoint pollution threat to Shannon water quality

The River Shannon catchment is under severe environmental pressure from sewage discharges, agricultural run-off and industrial effluents, an interim report has indicated.

The nine local authorities in the catchment area will have to tackle these problems under regulations introduced in July, said Mr Pat Duggan, project co-ordinator of the Lough Derg Lough Ree Catchment Monitoring and Management System.

Yesterday the Lough Derg Lough Ree group released its first annual report on the catchment. It details the work undertaken so far in its three-year effort to improve water quality along the Shannon and its tributaries. It also gives details of its water quality monitoring and its analysis of pollution inputs. The report indicates that 46 per cent of lands in a 28 square kilometre survey area outside Nenagh have excessive soil fertility levels where continued application of fertilisers would be a waste of money and effort. Farmers on these lands could stop applying phosphorous with no loss in yields, Mr Duggan said.

In another study it was found that 45 out of a group of 65 farms had inadequate storage facilities for the slurry they produced. Accidental slurry discharge was a common cause of fish-kills along Ireland's inland waterways.

The group was established by councils in Cavan, Clare, Galway, Leitrim, Longford, Offaly, Roscommon, Tipperary North and Westmeath to improve Shannon catchment water quality. Also involved are Bord na Mona, the ESB, the Central Fisheries Board, the Department of the Environment and Rural Development, the Environmental Protection Agency and Teagasc.

It involved "all agencies that have a responsibility for water quality on the Shannon catchment", Mr Duggan said.

The group had established 400 river-monitoring stations on the Shannon and its tributaries and had opened a laboratory in Roscommon to test the 12,000 samples taken annually, he said. "We are principally concerned with phosphates and nitrates, but samples are also tested for other chemicals and characteristics.

"The project is working with the county councils and the other agencies to provide an improved amount of data on sewage discharges. Industrial discharges are also monitored." There were "specific tasks to be done" by the councils under the new regulations, he said. "This will draw together all the information to enable them to do that."

Next year's annual report would have much more data from the monitoring and research effort, Mr Duggan said. The current report contained only four months of monitoring. The 1999 report would also have details of pilot projects established on farms in Cavan, Roscommon and Tipperary which look at ways of controlling agricultural pollutants.

The group will hold meetings, starting next week, with farmers along the Shannon catchment, Mr Duggan added.