The members of the Mayo County Council Environment and Emergency SPC welcomed the publication of the draft report on the River Basin management for the western region at their meeting this week. The committee were given a presentation by Pat Canney, co-ordinator of the western river basin’s district office on the draft report compiled by his office which is currently out for public consultation.
Mr Canny informed them that the report and plans are the result of an EU Water Framework Directive, which was adopted by Ireland in 2000. This directive requires all governments to manage all of the waters, rivers, canals, lakes and reservoirs, groundwaters, estuaries, and coastal waters in a way which preserves the natural ecology of the waters and restores it where needed.
Mr Canny informed the members that the directive orders that all waters achieve at least good status by 2015 and that the status of any waters that have achieved a higher mark already does not deteriorate.
He went on to inform the meeting that his office have mapped all the river, canal, lake, reservoir, marine waters, and groundwaters in the western district, collected information on their physical characteristics, and set up monitoring programmes to identify the current status of the basin’s water. He explained that the current draft report is out for public consultation and his organisation has always been looking for feedback on it from the public and will continue to do so.
The council members welcomed the report generally, while some members asked that farmers not be blamed for the poor showing of some areas in the testing of the quality. Cllr Eugene Lavin told the meeting: “Farmers are the most compliant and are the most regulated body in any industry when it comes to environmental compliances.” This was backed up by IFA representative on the committee Michael Biggins who stated: “Farmers have complied with every directive they have been given and will again, but before they get landed with more directives, I would call for the nitrates directive to be given a chance to work before more are handed down to them.”
