Q&A: Pressure mounts to meet water quality regulations
The pressure is on for Irish farmers and dairy farmers in particular to help achieve good quality status in waters by 2021, or by 2027 at the latest.
This requirement is set by the EU’s Water Framework Directive which commits EU member states to achieve good qualitative and quantitative status of all water bodies.
Failure to improve water quality over the next four years will jeopardise the nitrates derogations currently used by Irish farmers, and would damage the image of the Irish dairy sector in important international markets.
Agriculture is the significant pressure (and the largest land use) on 53% of water bodies. Other pressures come from industry and private sources such as septic tanks for example.
Helping farmers to play their role towards improving water quality is the newly launched Agricultural Sustainability and Support Advisory Programme, being set up to provide free direct advice. Dairy co-ops are putting teams in place for this programme.
This Government/industry collaboration supported by the farm organisations will run from this year to 2021. It will provide free and confidential agricultural advice from dedicated sustainability advisors to farmers operating in the Areas for Action.
Farmers will be advised on three main methods of improving water quality:
- Improved nutrient management with more targeted use of slurry and fertiliser.
- Better farmyard management as well as better practices.
- New approaches to land management, so as to reduce nutrient losses.
About 200 river catchments have been identified as Areas for Action in the River Basin Management Plan for 2018-21, which outlines the new approach on how to protect waters and meet the Water Framework Directive objectives.
The most recent water quality reports showed that only 57% of rivers, 46%of lakes, 31% of estuaries, and 79% of coastal waters were meeting all the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive. About 91%of groundwater bodies met the required water quality standards for their groundwater.
Its 30 agricultural sustainability advisors will work with existing advisory services to support farmers operating within the areas for action catchments.
Twenty of the advisors will be managed by Teagasc’s environmental and regional units, and a further 10 advisors are managed by the dairy industry who will work with their dairy farmers in the areas for action.
The new Local Authority Waters Science and Advisory Team has been specifically set up to carry out a full ground scientific assessment of the 192 Areas for Action. These teams will identify locations in each catchment where non-agricultural and agricultural pressures are to be addressed.
They literally walk the rivers and tributaries, sampling and testing, detecting problems. If the problem is agricultural, farmers in the area will be visited by advisors and offered the free Agricultural Sustainability and Support Advisory Programme advisory service, from a co-op advisor for dairy farms, and a Teagasc advisor for all other sectors. It is anticipated 23,000 farmers will receive sustainability advice.
Farmers can expect to see work begin in October, and to see advisors making their first farm visits in November.
The new Nitrates Action Programme includes up to 6,000 farm inspections per annum carried out by local authorities and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Other measures for delivery of environmental objectives include: the Rural Development Programme and the Green Low Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme; the Pesticides Regulations; the Agricultural Catchments Programme Environmental Impact Assessment (Agri) Regulations; and the Regulation of Domestic Waste-Water Treatment Systems.
Agriculture has been identified as a significant pressure in 780 (53%) of the 1,460 water bodies identified as at risk of not meeting their environmental objective.
Of these water bodies, 629 are rivers, 80 are lakes, eight are coastal waters, 32 are transitional waters, and 31 are groundwater. Impacts are seen in all catchments but are most prevalent in the eastern half of the country, notably in areas where there are poorly drained soils and subsoils — Co Cavan, Co Monaghan and Co Meath — where excess phosphorus is the issue. Pressures relate to diffuse runoff of nutrients and sediment from land, and to point source pollution associated with farmyards. Along southern catchments, with free draining soils and subsoils, estuaries are impacted by excess nitrogen from the contributing catchment areas.
