Anja Murray: Nitrates not giving our rivers a chance to breathe

Why is it now widely considered acceptable to heap pollutants in to lakes until the ecosystems they once sustained are eliminated?

EPA Ireland: Excess nutrients from agriculture, urban wastewater and other human activities remains the biggest challenge, followed by changes to physical habitat conditions 

When it comes to healthy rivers and lakes, Ireland has long had a deep connection with waterways.

The earliest people here, arriving sometime in the palaeolithic period, settled mainly along lake shores, rivers and coasts, where access to freshwater and abundant fish was assured. Through millennia, we have been blessed by rivers full of salmon, trout and eel — always enough to harvest our fill while leaving plenty for the future continuity of the resource.