Mayo View: Why we should fear for our swimming beaches

COUNTRYFILE

BIT of a grumble this week.

We don’t always have our swimming beaches off limits during the peak of the tourist season.

So, we need to ask, why is it that levels of pollution have become so severe that we dare not let our visitors near the water for fear they get sick or worse?

We know well that we have a problem with raw sewage pouring into Newport Bay, and it seems this will not be addressed for several years yet.

But surely that couldn’t be affecting the beaches on Achill or many miles to the south, could it?

We hope not. Still, we must concede the fact that such wasteful pollution as still occurs in one of Europe’s wealthiest countries in 2024 is nothing short of shocking.

Aha, we might ask, aren’t fines levied by the EU when shortfalls such as this become evident? There are fines, indeed. Unfortunately, it seems cheaper to cough up public money to pay these than it is to rectify matters.

But the sewers of Newport are not the only reason our seas are no longer safe to swim in.

Agricultural waste also enters the sea on a large scale, especially when slurry is spread during periods of heavy rainfall.

We do have to feel for our farmers though – there has hardly been a dry day for them to empty their slurry tanks safely.

Slurry goes on the fields, gets washed into the streams and from there into our drinking water and ultimately into the ocean.

Earlier this month, close to a thousand adult salmon died in the Ballisodare River in Co. Sligo for some unspecified reason – or at least for one that has not been released into the public domain.

Until the middle of the 19th century this particular river held no salmon at all, for the falls at the lower end prevented fish from ascending to suitable spawning territory.

In the 1840s fish ladders were installed, allowing salmon access for probably the first time ever.

Salmon eggs stripped from Moy broodstock were planted in the upper reaches of the river, and one of the country's finest salmon fisheries came into existence.

Now the Ballisodare fishery produces about 2,000 rod-caught salmon each year, putting it on a par with the very best and quite probably making it the richest fishery per mile in the entire country.

There are a couple of things we can learn here. One, it is quite possible to bring salmon back from the brink, just as easily as we can create a race of salmon as happened here. All it takes is the will.

Secondly, we cannot take water quality for granted, for we simply do not know what tomorrow will bring. All it takes is one accident for years of hard work to be undone.

Thirdly, we cannot expect to understand the real reasons behind the widespread decline in water quality.

What we can expect is that the reputation of Ireland as a clean and green, environmentally responsible country will continue to be be maligned.

Until we take such issues at least a little more seriously, we can only hope to hang on to the tatters of a once-burgeoning tourist industry.

It is encouraging to see changes in long-standing farming practice, especially in regard to the spreading of slurry.

New regulations will go a long way toward keeping our water supply intact and in restoring that which needs to be restored.

Can’t we just get on with it?