Inspections of farm streams could be on the way to pinpoint pollution blackspots

Local authority workers may be sent out to walk along the banks of streams and rivers from next year to help pinpoint the sources of pollution blackspots.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said there will be increasing focus on water quality into the future.

The EPA's Donal Daly said they can currently identify the streams affected by a pollutant but in some cases are unaware where precisely it is coming from.

Agriculture has been blamed for nutrients such as phosphates and nitrates from silage effluent and fertiliser leaching into water courses, while sediment washing in has also been highlighted as an issue.

"We are proposing that we would get people out walking the streams to see where the issues are arising," he said, adding they were developing commonsense guidelines on what to look out for.

"We are targeting it to those streams that are unsatisfactory and where agriculture and other point sources such as septic tanks are suspected of being an issue."

Mr Daly said they were proposing that farm advisors would then form a link between the regulators and farmers where issues arose.

He said inspections would still have their place but this could help target and bring about solutions to specific issues such as hedges for buffers.

"Inspections in my experience mean that for many farmers, the environment is associated with 'fear' which is not an effective means of bringing about behavioural change," he said.

Figures show there are 748 water bodies at risk and facing significant pollutant pressures from agriculture. However, half of water bodies deemed at risk are facing multiple pressures from other issues such as septic tanks, forestry and small waste water treatment plants.

It comes as farmers were urged to be vigilant with fertilisers and spreading slurry after agriculture was suspected in a fish kill this week in Galway.

Buffers

Mr Daly welcomed the work underway to create buffers and keep farming practices further away from water courses.

Under GLAS, some 28,500 farmers are fencing almost 15,000 kilometres of watercourses at a distance of 1.5 metres from the bank. A further 300 are leaving an additional riparian margin of between three and 30 metres wide along 78km of watercourse. Catherine Keena, Teagasc countryside specialist, highlighted the strong emphasis on water quality under the GLAS scheme.

"To me fencing watercourses on farms is a no brainer. It is just logical that if you have a strip between farming and the water, it acts as a barrier," she said.

Ms Keena said she felt that more should have availed of the riparian margin as it was the highest-paying per-hectare payment.

Mr Daly said that in the future they would like to see the GLAS environmental schemes becoming more targeted.

For instance, after heavy rain in poorly draining soil, phosphates can get washed into streams. "We've now mapped out the waterbodies that are impacted. We know a lot of the problems arise in the poorly draining soil areas and we should target those areas."