Irish Examiner view: We all have a role to play in saving our rivers

There are 46 river catchment areas in this county, comprising of 4,842 water bodies, of which 3,192 are rivers, but since the Environmental Protection Agency started monitoring water quality in the 1980s, many of those have seen startling declines and particularly so in our rivers. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

With nearly half of Ireland’s river bodies showing a “moderate, poor, or bad” ecological status during the 2016-2021 period, and the figure improving to just 45% between 2021 and 2023, there is clearly still a huge amount of work to be done to restore not only water quality in our rivers, but public confidence in it.

The Irish Examiner is this week running a series entitled ‘Save Our Rivers’ because although we as a nation take pride in our environment and the quality of our drinking water, there have been countless examples in recent times where our environment is palpably not clean and our water undrinkable.

Our aim is to open Irish eyes to the problems we face with water, the many examples of pollutants and polluters and the ways in which we can tackle the problems we face right now and into the future.

There are 46 river catchment areas in this county, comprising of 4,842 water bodies, of which 3,192 are rivers, but since the Environmental Protection Agency started monitoring water quality in the 1980s, many of those have seen startling declines and particularly so in our rivers.

Water catchment areas which have come under particular scrutiny include those based on some of our biggest rivers, including the Lee, the Suir, the Barrow and the Shannon. We know agricultural activities are the biggest single threat to the health of our rivers; as dairy farming has exponentially risen, so too have threats to our waterways. Pharmaceutical giants, too, consume millions of cubic metres of water a year.

Balancing economic growth with basic protections of our water and environment is a nettle which successive governments have failed to grasp.

We face huge problems in the redevelopment of watercourses and the treatment of urban wastewater and central and local government efforts must be run parallel with those of state bodies such as Uisce Éireann to identify and deal with these issues.

We, the people, have a role to play in terms of our behaviour and what we put into our wastewater. In the same way issues such as littering and illegal dumping have been tackled by education and increasingly heavy penalties for offenders, people can be brought on board by similar tactics.

Ukraine demonstrates fighting spirit 

In the two and a half years since Vladimir Putin’s Russian armies illegally invaded Ukraine, the defenders have consistently surprised their allies and their invaders with their determination, skill, and tenacity in defending their territory.

There was the initial defence of Kyiv in the early weeks of the war; last year they unexpectedly liberated the city of Kherson, and just two weeks ago, they themselves invaded Russian territory. The Ukrainian people and its armies have consistently spoiled the expected narrative that this war was Russia’s to win.

Russia has been keen to promote the view that the war was becoming a stalemate and, because of its grinding nature, it was always going to prevail. Kyiv, however, has been equally keen to flip that perception and recent dynamic operations have demonstrated just how it can continue to embarrass the Putin regime.

It has quietly cleared the Black Sea to the point where commercial shipping lanes are now open; nearly a third of the Russian naval fleet has been destroyed in so doing. Meticulous drone strikes have destroyed Russian air defences and attacks on Russian air bases in Crimea have blunted the invader’s capabilities.

Since March, an estimated 30 of Russia’s largest oil refineries have been under constant attack and now, with Ukrainian soldiers’ feet on Russian soil across the Kursk oblast, Kyiv has yet again rattled Putin and his image of infallibility.

Quite whether these efforts will be enough to bring Putin to the negotiating table, or even blunt Russian gains in the Belgorod oblast because it has to reroute men and materiel to defending Kursk, remains to be seen, But Ukraine’s ability to deliver a bloody nose to the Kremlin remains unstinting.

Building on Olympic success

In our post-Olympic idyll, all of the back-slapping and fevered celebrations have been tempered more than somewhat by the realisation that everything achieved in Paris was done so largely without the aid of proper facilities.

That fact is very much to the fore in the sphere of athletics, and particularly so in Cork. In March, the authorities in UCC announced the temporary closure of the Sonia O’Sullivan track on the Mardyke due to a “rapid and significant deterioration” of the surface, leaving the county bereft of any running track. The reopening of the MTU track in Bishopstown in time for the Cork City Sports in July relieved matters, while the granting of planning permission to Bandon AC (home to Olympic heroines Phil Healy and Nicola Tuthill) to allow it to build its own facility at Clancool Beg outside the town was also welcome.

However, it is not only Cork that is suffering in this regard and, outside Dublin, many areas remain a blank canvas when it comes to having proper athletics facilities. Similarly, the absence of a 50m swimming pool in many parts of the country is stunting the development of our swimmers. The initiative of Dolphin SC in purchasing their own prefabricated 50m pool is noteworthy, but they need funding and land to make it a reality.

It was pleasing to see many Government ministers, from the Taoiseach down, pledging substantially increased funding for sport in the wake of our Olympic successes, but we know that actions count more than words and we need to see more action. Our successful showing in Paris awakened a huge interest in sport and particularly among a generation of our youth which had never encountered its like before, but if we are to fully exploit that level of enthusiasm, then the work has to start now on harnessing it.

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