Ella McSweeney: The Barrow begins life with enormous potential but by the time it flows into the sea it is in a bad way

A few weeks ago I was in Laois to hike part of the 2,300-hectare nature reserve in the Slieve Bloom Mountains in search of the source of Ireland’s second longest river, the Barrow. Simple footsteps won’t get you far on a soft, sodden bog. It’s easy to imagine a force sucking you downwards with such strength you’re pulled underground. And so, inspired by a few nearby fallow deer whose path I was following, I high-stepped it on my tiptoes. It’s an effective strategy.

I had thought that the start of the Barrow would be a specific point, but the headwaters in Barna aren’t distinct. Like a sponge, the bog absorbs as much water as it can; excessive amounts spill over and gather in rivulets and streams. In bits and pieces, the Barrow takes life. It flows for a short distance northwards before heading southeast through Kildare, Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford and out to sea at Waterford Harbour.

My walking companion on the fraughan-laden bog was Tom Joyce, author of a marvellous book called Bladma: Walks of Discovery in Slieve Bloom. Near the top we veered off the deer path deeper into the watery bog. From the silence, a gushing sound came from underneath. Tom pushed the heather and mountain grasses to one side and a narrow, foot-wide stream emerged from the ground. This water would, eventually, find its way to Waterford as the river Barrow.

Although this bog is almost entirely surrounded by non-native coniferous plantations – which can be detrimental to rivers from the release of sediment, pesticides, and nutrients – the infant waters of the Barrow are of high quality. Like so many of our major rivers, the Barrow begins life with an enormous potential to support an abundance of species along its course. But by the time it flows into the sea, the Barrow, like its sister rivers the Nore and the Suir, is in a bad way.

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The story is best understood at the estuary, where salty seawater pushes up with the tide twice daily and mixes with the freshwater coming down from the land. Testing the waters here is invaluable because it tells you what is going on upstream and combines all the human activities and pressures a river endures, including abstraction for the most essential thing we need: drinking water.

Fish, invertebrates and plants will move away in an attempt to find ecologically healthier parts of the river to survive. Anything that eats them, such as otters, will also move

Estuaries can reach one of five grades set by the European Union. It’s easiest to imagine this as a traffic-light system: green for “high” and “good”, amber for “moderate”, and red for “poor” and “bad”. By law, we need all our estuaries to be under the green light because anything less indicates that the life in the river is struggling, and that pollution levels are potentially fatal.

The Barrow estuary, like the Nore, is flashing amber, while the Suir, desperately, is red. These great rivers are not functioning as they should, mainly due to very high nitrogen and phosphorous levels, which the Environmental Protection Agency says is primarily from intensive agriculture. These nutrients fertilise the water, causing phytoplankton blooms and limiting oxygen levels on which all other species depend.

Visually you might see scum on the surface, gloop on stones, foaming events, and long green algae growing where it shouldn’t. Fish, invertebrates and plants will move away in an attempt to find ecologically healthier parts of the river to survive. Anything that eats them, such as otters, will also move.

Trajectory of decline

All the estuaries from Skibbereen to Wexford are now either amber or red. It wasn’t always this way; up to the 2010s, water quality had improved. But if this trajectory of decline continues, the estuaries will become lifeless, and our coastal waters – currently at high status – will become unacceptably polluted, with toxic red tides and blooms of seaweed on beaches. In this scenario, aquaculture will become increasingly difficult.

Water has one thing on its side: it’s the ultimate truth-teller, Nature’s great whistleblower. Whatever we pour into it, however we channel it or abstract from it, it will show up in the data

These estuaries and rivers need help to stop their deterioration, particularly in the face of new pressures from emerging pollutants, climate change and the spread of invasive species. This is a trend seen across Europe. In a paper published last week in Nature, scientists say that the recovery of European freshwater biodiversity has stopped.

Drawing on 53 years’ worth of data across 22 countries (including 20 years of data from Burrishoole, Co Mayo, led by Dr Elvira de Eyto), they concluded that historic biodiversity gains from mitigation measures, such as wastewater treatment and restoration projects, came to a halt in the 2010s, and a considerable effort is needed to reverse the extensive and severe pressures.

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Water has one thing on its side: it’s the ultimate truth-teller, Nature’s great whistleblower. Whatever we pour into it, however we channel it or abstract from it, it will show up in the data; it doesn’t allow us to hide our sins. Using rivers as a place to dump our excesses is an old habit we need to shake, as is our unwillingness to enforce even the most basic of water laws.

From the pureness of its water in the Slieve Blooms to the nutrient-rich failing waters in its estuary, the current state of the Barrow tells us our standards are too low. Rivers display discomfort when they are ecologically out of balance – the life inside them slips away, and they lose their vibrancy. But given a proper chance, they can regain what has been lost.

We’ve managed this before. Shifting our ways so that the Three Sister Rivers can, once again, be high quality is undoubtedly a minimum standard we should set.