The Shannon Protection Alliance was set up in April to oppose any attempt by Dublin City Council to draw water from Lough Ree, writes Ronan McGreevy
Lakeside Marina owner Michael Barrett runs his finger along a white line at the edge of the water where the shores of Lough Ree meets his boatyard in Glasson, Co Westmeath.
The white line denotes the average level of water in the lake, but, even after one of the wettest summers in memory, the level is still 18 inches below normal.
Lough Ree is not like a sink. It does not fill up with water when rain comes. Neither does it empty in dry conditions.
Much of the water level in the lake comes from water which runs off the land, but when the land is dry it can absorb months of rainfall. Hence, levels in the lake are still only recovering from the drought of April and May.
Water levels are just one of the factors exercising the members of the Shannon Protection Alliance (SPA), which was set up in April this year to oppose any attempts by Dublin City Council to draw water from Lough Ree.
The council says the amount it needs to extract only represents 2 per cent of the volume of the Shannon in any given year, but locals fear that would be enough to create an ecological disaster, especially in dry years.
Local people acted with barely concealed outrage when the plan was first mooted last year.
They argue that Dublin's problem should not become a problem of theirs, that the council has no historical, geographical or economic right to the water, and local people will be paying the price for years of bad planning, profligate water wastage and a failure to explore the option of the north Leinster aquifer which extends from Fingal to Kildare.
The people behind SPA say water levels in Lough Ree are at a critical level. It is only 5ft deep in places, and they fear that even a small diminution of water levels could have a serious impact on cruising, on fish which cannot spawn because the feeder rivers are too low and on pollution levels.
SPA says lower water levels will lead to greater concentrations of algae bloom.
Dublin City Council's water plans were a general election issue, and the SPA extracted promises from all candidates in the Longford-Westmeath constituency who were unanimous in opposing the proposal.
PJ Walsh, the alliance PRO, says they have the strongest mandate possible to oppose the council's plans.
"As we stand, we have the support of individual groups that represent over 100,000 people in the fishing fraternity, along with cruiser hire, landowners, hoteliers, golf club owners, restaurant owners.
"These people [Dublin City Council] have no idea of the long-term effect of what they are proposing.
"The central point is that in the dry summer of 1995, which is the worst-case scenario, water levels at Athlone were too low for 44 days in a row to sustain navigation requirements.
"What will happen if an extra 350 million litres is taken out of it every day? It's simply unsustainable."
"We're not tree-huggers," said Michael Barrett, who acts as the SPA's treasurer and who invested €10 million in the Lakeside Marina after living abroad for decades.
"Most of the people who object to this have never objected before. Many of them are businessmen who have been through objections themselves trying to develop things and they have a genuine concern."
The chairman of the alliance is local fisherman Martin McEnroe, who is fearful that a drop in the water levels will have a detrimental effect on the delicate ecology which sustains the fishing industry in the area.
He is involved in a €750,000 rehabilitation scheme on the river Cross, which feeds into Lough Ree, on water which is now only 18 inches deep.
"The fish come off the lake, come up into these feeder streams and spawn. With the water extraction of the lake, water will run off so quickly that it will leave us with very little water for fish to live in."
The SPA says it would not oppose the council's proposals to extract water from the Shannon during winter for storage purposes, but is sceptical that the council has any intention of following such an option.
It is fearful that the Shannon option is already a done deal and the decision could come as early as next year.
The prospect of outraged local residents on this issue has resonance with Rossport, a stand-off which resulted in the jailing of five otherwise law-abiding citizens.
"We wouldn't expect it to reach the Rossport stage," said Barrett.
"We don't want to go down that road. We want to be where we are talking to politicians, talking to the reasonable people who can see into the future and, hopefully, we'll have a satisfactory result".