Call for stringent pollution controls

The latest Environmental Protection Agency report on water quality highlights the need for even more stringent measures to curb pollution arising from agriculture and badly managed or outdated sewage treatment plants, according to the environmental group VOICE.

Its spokeswoman, Ms Iva Pocock, described the level of pollution occurring in rivers and lakes as "extremely disappointing". She said farmers should be required to draw up "nutrient management plans" outlining how they dispose of their waste - at present only farmers in the Rural Environment Protection Scheme or those in sensitive catchments have to do this. Farmers should have to show proof of these plans when buying fertiliser, she said. The absence of monitoring for hazardous substances was disturbing, given international evidence that endocrine disrupters from pesticides, sewage and industrial chemicals were harming freshwater ecosystems, she said.

The Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Dan Wallace, defended the measures introduced over the past two years, though he accepted some aspects of the report were "not so comforting".

The introduction of catchment management strategies in sensitive waters; provision of waste water treatment facilities; the setting of phosphorus standards and the passing of bye-laws by local authorities to halt and reverse water deterioration would bring tangible results, Mr Wallace said.

The chairman of the Irish Farmers' Association's environment committee, Mr Aidan Larkin, said farmers shared concern at further deterioration in water quality. He disputed, however, that the full extent of the increase in slight and moderate pollution could be attributed to agriculture.

There was a need accurately to identify who was responsible. Phosphorus, the main nutrient implicated, came in significant quantities from sources other than agriculture, such as detergents, sewage, septic tanks and industrial discharges, he added.

Dr Trevor Champ of the Central Fisheries Board said the continuing decline meant that serious decisions would have to be taken and hard measures would have to be introduced.