Sir, - In spite of Ireland possessing one of the lowest population densities in the EU, faecal wastes from its almost four million inhabitants causes many environmental problems. The estuary and coastal waters around Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway demonstrate the aquatic degradation resulting from flushing poorly-treated human sewage into the sea. To protect and upgrade our inland and coastal waters, the EU has earmarked almost £1 billion to overhaul/upgrade Ireland's derelict and outmoded sewage treatment systems.
But what about the faecal wastes produced by the intensive rearing of cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry? Ireland currently possesses almost 8 million cattle, 8 million sheep and 2 million pigs. As one cow daily produces 16 times the volume of urine and faeces produced by a single human, the cattle population alone in Ireland produces 32 times the volume of similar wastes produced by the human population. Intensive animal rearing now creates 31 million tonnes of slurries annually.
Whereas human sewage is treated prior to disposal, where do the colossal volumes of untreated, poisonous and heavily polluting animal wastes go? While a sizeable portion is landspread, much Irish land is now super-saturated with 20 years' accumulations of these slurries and cannot absorb any more. The bulk of the wastes have no official destination and simply "disappear". The long-term effects of this lack of a coherent and environmentally acceptable State policy of agricultural waste-disposal become daily more evident:
Communal water supplies polluted by agricultural bacteria now stand at record levels. The lack of public confidence in Irish drinking water shows in the spiralling sales of bottled water, a practice totally unknown ten years ago.
The number of fish killed in our rivers and lakes rises. Previously, fish kills affected only short river distances, but today's devastations, the majority caused by agricultural effluents, wipe out aquatic life for up to 20 miles.
The standard of water quality in many of our once pristine lakes continues to plummet, e.g. Loughs Derg, Ree, Sheelin, Conn, Killarney, Culin, Erne, etc. The stain of pollution may even be affecting the great western lakes of Corrib, Mask and Arrow.
The rapid drop in fish stocks in rivers such as the Barrow, Nore, Suir, Blackwater, Liffey, to name but a few, is alarming. Parts of our mightiest river, the Shannon, are now unsafe to swim in.
The Waterford coastline has been so contaminated by pathogenic bacteria that public health warnings caution against eating shellfish.
The problem of disposing of all agricultural wastes is now the responsibility of the latest State agency specifically mandated to clean up our environment, the Environmental Protection Agency. But the actual safe disposal of highly polluting materials "is not the EPA's responsibility".
In the meanwhile one can only ask: "Where do all the faeces go . . .?" - Yours, etc., Roderick D. O' Sullivan, BDS, M.Sc,
Maida Vale, London.