Toxic blue-green algae now at more than 30 waterways in Northern Ireland

TOXIC blue-green algae in Northern Ireland has been reported at least 168 times this year, across more than 30 different locations.

A triathlon planned for Saturday at Castlewellan Forest Park in Co Down has had to change to a ‘sprint duathlon’ after the organisers said the algae had been detected by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA).

A weekly update of confirmed algae cases is also posted online by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).

Not including Castlewellan, the highest concentration of the confirmed 168 reports were along the Lower Bann at 52 – which stretches from the northern edge of Lough Neagh at Toome up towards Coleraine and Portstewart.

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Lough Neagh as the most high-profile example has had 43 confirmed cases, while Lower Lough Erne in Co Fermanagh had 16.

Other examples included Hillsborough Park Lake in Co Down with five confirmed cases and Shaw’s Lake in Co Armagh with four.

Moor Lough in Co Tyrone had three cases while in Co Antrim the examples included one case at Killylane Reservoir and another at Copeland Reservoir.

On Tuesday, the environment minister Andrew Muir promised action after a report found Stormont was not doing enough to ensure the health of Northern Ireland’s waterways.

The environmental watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection (OPE), had said that just under a third of waterways were in a good ecological condition – and that a 2027 target of 70% would not be met.

This week, the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) also announced £260m in direct payments to farmers - but People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll questioned why just £1.6m was allocated earlier this year to fix the problems at Lough Neagh.

“While I am not opposed to supporting small farmers, I would question where this money is going and what environmental stipulations accompany these payments. Where small farms need support they should get it, but DAERA cannot simply throw more money at the industrial polluters in big agri-business,” he said.

“Just this week the minister was bemoaning the north’s poor water quality, but actions speak louder than words. His actions tell us that the needs of agri-business are more important than our waterways.

“Agricultural run-off is a primary driver of the catastrophe at Lough Neagh and it is time the DAERA minister and his Executive colleagues grasped this fact. Otherwise they are doomed to repeat the problems of the past, with incentivised industrial farming destroying our waterways.”

In July, Stormont Ministers had agreed to a 37-point action plan to tackle the environmental problems at Lough Neagh - including measures to mitigate the impact of run-off from manure slurry and other agricultural fertilisers into waterways.

Speaking at the time, the Ulster Farmers’ Union deputy president John McClenaghan called for a “fair and proportionate response” and said the level of blame for water pollution directed at farmers was “extremely disheartening.”

“It needs to be recognised that farmers live and work in the countryside, and the health of our local landscape is paramount not only to their business but to their own wellbeing,” he said.