To mark World Water Day today March 22nd, VOICE and other environmental groups from around Ireland today recreated a beach spoiled by pollution outside Leinster House, to highlight the lack of action to protect Ireland’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters.
World Water Day is the day new water plans for the protection of Ireland’s waters were due to be sent to Europe. The objective of these River Basin Management Plans1 is to pull together the numerous strands of water legislation and to manage water in an integrated way to prevent pollution and degradation of our rivers, lakes and bays. Environmental umbrella group the Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) 2 says the plans fail to do this.
Sinead O’ Brien spokesperson for the network said:"These plans, which are supposed to protect our rivers, lakes and bays, are wholly inadequate. Despite the fact that under law they must set out a management plan for all our waters, our coastal waters are being completely ignored. This is a disgrace, given that we are an island nation and rely on clean coasts for fishing, business, recreation and tourism. This, combined with poor waste water treatment, means that in more than 100 locations around the country, raw or inadequately treated sewage is flowing into our estuaries and bays”.
A recent EPA report3 bears out SWAN’s concerns. It shows recent increases in fish kills, decreases in the number of bathing water sites meeting EU public safety standards and a dramatic loss in the percentage of high ecological river sites over the last 20 years.
Ms O'Brien also drew attention to the fact that some of Ireland's most pristine and untouched freshwater habitats are deteriorating due to pollution from agriculture, forestry and sewage and yet these plans do little or nothing to stop this. "In Ireland we are lucky to still have a few of the most pristine lakes and river stretches in Europe. These should be treasured as the jewels in the crown of our landscape; instead, even these last gems are being ruined as we continue to allow pollution to flow into them."
SWAN is calling on the Minister for Environment, John Gormley not to sign off on the plans until the group’s concerns have been addressed.For interview and comment contact Sinead O’Brien, SWAN Coordinator at (087) 6176177Notes to editor1. The River Basin Management Plans are a requirement under the EU Water Framework Directive (EU Directive 2000/60/EC). Under the WFD Ireland is required to manage all waters through a catchment based process, and the River Basin Management Plan is the mechanism for achieving this. There are 8 River Basin Districts on the island of Ireland. One wholly in Northern Ireland, three cross-border and four wholly in the Republic.2. The Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) is a network of 24 of Ireland’s leading national and local environmental organisations, working together in a co-ordinated way on water protection issues. The aim of SWAN and its member organisations is to protect and enhance the quality of Ireland’s waters through full participation of the environmental sector in the river basin management planning process, and through raising awareness of water issues and ensuring enforcement of water protection.3. The EPA Report Water Quality in Ireland 2007 – 2008 was released last December 2009. It focuses on key indicators of the aquatic environment and summarises the most recent national water quality assessments. It is available for download at www.epa.ie/downloads/pubs/water/waterqua/name,27541,en.html
FOR FURTHER INFO PLEASE CONTACT SINEAD O'BRIEN AT info@swanireland.ie
