Anja Murray: Urgent action needed to make Lough Neagh pollution and green sludge a distant memory

The rich wildlife of Lough Neagh is being damaged by decades of pollution by nutrients from agriculture, wastewater, septic tanks and industrial processes — and we need to tackle this now

Blue Green Algae concentrations on the shores of Lough Neagh in County Antrim. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Looking out over the expanse of Lough Neagh, it is hard to believe this is a lake and not a sea. On a clear day, land on the far side is just about visible as a rim of distant blue hills. The largest lake on the island of Ireland and in the UK (by surface area), Lough Neagh boasts a surface area of almost 400 square kilometres and supplies drinking water to 40% of Northern Ireland’s population.

I feel a special affinity with Lough Neagh as my grandmother grew up near its shores, her family from a long line of farming folk whose lives were entwined with the life on the lake. Before them, the lake was famously bountiful since the days of the very first people known to have settled on this Island.