Tipperary drainage committee excited by plans to clean River Suir into 2026

The Loughmore Drainage Committee has issued a statement regarding the plans confirmed by the Tipperary County Council to maintain its efforts in cleaning and maintaining the River Suir.

The statement was issued following the May meeting of the Thurles Municipal District of the Tipperary County Council, in which it was announced that cleaning efforts for the river would continue through 2025 and into 2026.

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It will involve compiling all available information on water quality in the upstream catchment, to identify where water quality has declined, what pollutants are causing those declines and what activities are the sources of those pollutants.

It will also identify the actions required to restore water quality in these areas.

Tipperary County Council Environment Section, with support from LAWPRO, Uisce Éireann and Thurles MD aim to plan and implement the assessments of significant storm water discharges in Thurles.

LAWPRO has developed a Citizen Science project in Upper River Suir and are looking for community partners to implement the project.

LAWPRO are in discussion with Inland Fisheries Ireland on their programme of works in this
Catchment.

Teagasc and Centenary-Thurles Co-op are working with farmers in the catchment to fund and implement on-farm measures through the Water European Innovation Partnership.

In their statement, the Loughmore Drainage Committee said: “The Tipperary Star dated 22nd May had an exciting heading - "Plans to clean the River Suir in Tipperary". The article included many very admirable aspirations with contributions from interested parties.

“For generations the Loughmore Drainage Committee are the only people who have done anything about cleaning the river between Thurles and Loughmore. In the mid 1960's after much agitation the Co. Council gave us the funds and in 1967 we did a brilliant job of cleaning the river from Loughmore to Holycross. Three times in all, with the help of €45,000 from the Co. Council the last time, we cleaned about 5 kilometres from Thurles towards Loughmore. We did the best we could but when the money ran out the work stopped.

“After a few years, primarily as there was very little fall from Loughmore to Thurles the vegetation, trees and bushes choke the river again. It is so bad that the fishermen have abandoned it, leaving it to a few graceful swans and water hens. Just look at the disgraceful state of the River Suir in Thurles.

“The Mall River in Templemore, which is only a stream, rarely and only in extreme weather conditions would cause a bit of flooding in a small area of the town and something needed to be done about it. Farmers in the Loughmore Thurles area were very much aware of what was being done as that stream flows directly into the Suir. Conscious of how difficult it is to get any money for the River Suir and the length of time the OPW. had given to about 1 kilometre of the stream in Templemore, under the freedom of information act, we applied last October to know how much had been spent up until then and as it is still ongoing it is reasonable to assume that the 17 million then could be around 20 million by now.

“This figure is breath-taking, truly mind-blowing, astonishing! People in the private sector who know about drainage and rivers would have done every bit as effective a job for about 5% of 20 million. Think about what the balance could have done in either health, education, rural roads or for children with special needs.

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“Our Alan Kelly TD is the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and he should get someone from the O.P.W. to explain why such a relatively minor job could cost so very much. Thurles and surrounding parishes are trying in every way possible to cobble together 2 million for the essential massive work of putting a new roof on our magnificent Cathedral, when the cost of relieving the flooding in Templemore would reroof 10 such Cathedrals.

“We in the Loughmore Drainage Committee look forward with great interest and hope to what the outcome of this article in the "Star" will be in due course. We would dearly love to see our lovely river get cleaned so that the water could flow gently along on its journey to the sea,” the statement concluded.

The County Councillors were highly in favour of this work progressing.

Cllr Jim Ryan asked that during the consultation process, that the local fishing and angling clubs be contacted to attain their co-operation.

He mentioned that there was a recent instance where a man was powerhosing the houses in an estate running adjacent to the river, and some of the chemicals he was using ended up in the river, harming many of the fish within, and asked could this be looked into and assessed.

Cllr Sean Ryan spoke of how the River Suir cannot be looked at in isolation, and that the tributaries of the Suir must be looked at, as simply cleaning the Suir up and not any of the rivers that feed into it would result in a need to clean the river up again in the near future.

He said this would be an important step to take in order to future-proof the river.

He brought particular emphasis to the River Breagagh, which runs near Littleton.

Cllr Kay Cahill-Skehan spoke of how the river looks terrible when running low, and that the problem with pollution needs to be tackled, starting in the towns.

LAWPRO mentioned that their team consists of a small number of people, and that these projects will take some time due to the fact.

They said that they are looking into the tributaries, however the aforementioned Breagagh is currently not one of their priorities.

They said that they are currently assessing tributaries in Templemore, and in Rossesstown, outside Thurles.

LAWPRO is also committed to upgrading the status of the water cleanliness of the Suir.

Currently only one section of the river is meeting the status objective of Good Status.

This is the section from Loughmore to immediately upstream of Thurles where the Rossestown Stream discharges into the River Suir.

LAWPRO say they have not carried out any detailed assessments here yet, but there is a lot of information already available from the EPA’s Water Framework Directive monitoring programme.

EPA biologists have confirmed that the sites monitored are not in satisfactory ecological condition.

One of the significant causes of these water quality declines is excessive nutrients, primarily phosphorus.

Using the water quality data and information about size and scale of activities in the catchment, the EPA have also identified what activities that are most likely to be a pressure on water quality.

These include agriculture, peat extraction, forestry, hydromorphology, and wastewater treatment plant discharges.

The wastewater treatment plant in Templemore has been identified as a pressure on water quality, and it is estimated that the treatment plant is contributing approximately 13% of the measured annual phosphorus load at the monitoring site immediately downstream of Templemore.

In other words, other sources of phosphorus in the catchment are contributing over 20% of the phosphorus load, in particular diffuse losses from agricultural lands.

LAWPRO say they will investigate all of these pressures on water quality to identify which are the most significant and also where measures are required to improve water quality in the Suir.

This will form part of the River Suir Plan to ultimately determine the factors driving excessive vegetation growth, sedimentation and nuisance algae within the catchment will need to be addressed within this plan.

LAWPRO catchment scientists will commence this work later in 2025 and it will continue throughout 2025 and 2026.