Drop in the water quality of rivers and streams in Tipperary

The quality of water in Tipperary’s rivers, streams and lakes has dropped from a satisfactory rating of 60 per cent to 33 per cent in the last ten to twelve years, members of Clonmel Borough District were told at their monthly meeting.

That figure was a lot lower than the national average of 52 per cent, and because of that the situation in Tipperary is a lot more urgent than in other areas because the water quality in the county has declined at a greater rate than across the rest of the country.

This was stated by Ruth Hennessy, Catchment Manager in the south east region with LAWPRO, the Local Authority Waters Programme.

She said she wasn’t entirely sure what had caused the sudden increase in the deterioration of water quality in Tipperary.

She said that across the country, agriculture was placing the single greatest pressure on water quality.

LAWPRO worked closely with advisors from Teagasc, the state agency providing research, advice and education in agriculture, horticulture, food and rural development in Ireland.

She said that 40 per cent of dairy farmers didn’t have enough storage capacity.

However, Ms Hennessy said that huge efforts were being made across the agricultural sector to protect water quality, and huge improvements were being made.

Other areas of pressure were urban waste water treatment plants and the run-off from urban areas. Waste water plants were monitored and there were also challenges in this area.

A team of agricultural advisors worked with farmers to address any problems.

The Department of Agriculture had confirmed that LAWPRO had been allocated a grant of €50 million over five years for farmers throughout the country to address water quality issues.

LAWPRO was also focused on urban areas and design guidance that would inform planning, and they also needed to build resilience to cope with climate change.

Cllr John FitzGerald said he was a little disappointed to hear that Tipperary is behind the national curve but he wasn’t overly surprised, considering our intensive agriculture sector.

He said that farmers were very compliant in terms of the storage of slurry, there was a lot of awareness in the sector and farmers were doing their best.

He said that this whole area of water quality would be huge in the future because of the amount of inland water sports such as kayaking being expanded, and because of the development of Suir Island in Clonmel.

Cllr Siobhán Ambrose said that something seemed to have gone seriously wrong for the water quality levels in the county to have dropped from 60 per cent to 33 per cent.

She wondered if grants could be secured from the European Union to help an area like Tipperary where there was such a significant drop in the water quality level.

When Cllr Michael Murphy was told that the Anner was classified as a river where the water quality was poor, he said you could have completely different results taken today from others taken tomorrow.

Ruth Hennessy said that information was compiled from a number of monitoring programmes, and overall they had a very comprehensive monitoring programme.

Scientific analysis was carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).