Post by Davy Telford on Dec 9, 2011 20:53:12 GMT
Michael Mirtin has been shortlisted for the Countryside Alliance Rural Oscars Awards for work with the Six Mile River Trust. The Trust has had a busy year in 2011, we got our own insurance and participated in several river clean-ups, even finding an old unexploded missile at the Antrim Forum! We have engaged with Northern Ireland Environment Agency , Northern Ireland Water and Rivers Agency and identified pollution hotspots to have the problems resolved, even having one sewage facility closed down and resited in a more appropriate area. We highlighted the complete failure of the Ballyclare Treatment Plant during the cold weather at the start of this year even though it was supposed to be ‘state of the art’ sewage treatment plant. The design of this plant is no longer used in England. We challenged Chain Reaction Cycles for putting their digger into the Doagh Burn spawning tributary to remove a weir without permission and at a time when salmon and dollaghan were present and on the spawning redds, DCAL officers in charge of fisheries are now considering a prosecution as this is the second time an incident of this nature has occurred in two years.
The Trust has worked with the NIEA to obtain and erect Pollution Hotline signage along the river so that the public will be aware of the number to call if they see a problem and Trust members removed a highly toxic and polluting fuel laundering material which Council, NIEA and Rivers Agency refused to touch until the BBC arrived.
The Trust has also raised several questions with Minister at Stormont with issues such as policy on invasive species, pollution control and illegal commercial fishing in Lough Neagh which is threatening the livelihoods of licenced fishermen who have fished for generations and threatens fish populations in Lough Neagh, including the Dollaghan, the migratory trout which spawns in the rivers running into the Lough and returns to feed on the rich invertebrate populations in the Lough. The Dollaghan population in most rivers has now collapsed and Ballinderry River Trust has demonstrated this scientifically to the Minister for fisheries. We feel that the commercial fishery in Lough Neagh at the moment is unsustainable and in a landmark decision the legal commercial fishermen have written a letter to the Minister to explain the issues and protest at lack of action against the ‘cowboy’ operators. The Dollaghan is indigenous to Northern Ireland and is part of our environmental heritage so we feel it deserves to be managed in a sensitive manner, on the Six Mile Water numbers have reduced but as there is quite a lot of boat traffic at the mouth of the river so thankfully netting operations are more difficult for the poaching fraternity.
The Six Mile Water Trust are working with NIEA to form the Water Framework Directive Local Management Plans for the river catchment, we are also thankful to the business community for controlling chemical effluent and a special thanks to the farming interests for acting responsibly in line with the Nitrates Directive which helps reduce the over-enrichment of the water. Leaving a buffer zone at the river bank and not spraying slurry close to the stream has meant that the river no longer gets choked with algae and blanket weed during the summer. We still have issues with N. I. Water Combined Sewage Outflows (CSO’s) which allow untreated sewage to discharge directly into the river during times of heavy rain, considering that the river runs into our drinking water supply!
Thanks to all these efforts the streams and river are improving steadily and the little fish which we stocked after the fish kill are thriving, invertebrate and the rare river water crowfoot plant are returning. Dollaghan and salmon are once again busy on the spawning redds and otters and kingfishers have returned to the catchment.
Danny Kinahan secured an ‘Adjournment’ at Stormont recently on behalf of the Trust to discuss river pollution and a lively debate ensued with Paul Girvan, Stephen Agnew, Nelson Mc Causland, Mitchel Mc Laughlin and Alex Attwood amongst others contributing. Two days later we were up at Stormont again for the Coca-Cola Tidy Northern Ireland Awards to receive a ‘Highly Commended’ Award.
It has been a busy but rewarding year for the Six Mile Water Trust but my pleasure is being by the river and seeing the wildlife return, I would like to think that we should cherish and protect what little habitat is left for our wildlife, this is our natural heritage, part of the fabric of Northern Ireland and surely worth protecting,
Michael Martin
Six Mile Water Trust
Well done Michael
The Trust has worked with the NIEA to obtain and erect Pollution Hotline signage along the river so that the public will be aware of the number to call if they see a problem and Trust members removed a highly toxic and polluting fuel laundering material which Council, NIEA and Rivers Agency refused to touch until the BBC arrived.
The Trust has also raised several questions with Minister at Stormont with issues such as policy on invasive species, pollution control and illegal commercial fishing in Lough Neagh which is threatening the livelihoods of licenced fishermen who have fished for generations and threatens fish populations in Lough Neagh, including the Dollaghan, the migratory trout which spawns in the rivers running into the Lough and returns to feed on the rich invertebrate populations in the Lough. The Dollaghan population in most rivers has now collapsed and Ballinderry River Trust has demonstrated this scientifically to the Minister for fisheries. We feel that the commercial fishery in Lough Neagh at the moment is unsustainable and in a landmark decision the legal commercial fishermen have written a letter to the Minister to explain the issues and protest at lack of action against the ‘cowboy’ operators. The Dollaghan is indigenous to Northern Ireland and is part of our environmental heritage so we feel it deserves to be managed in a sensitive manner, on the Six Mile Water numbers have reduced but as there is quite a lot of boat traffic at the mouth of the river so thankfully netting operations are more difficult for the poaching fraternity.
The Six Mile Water Trust are working with NIEA to form the Water Framework Directive Local Management Plans for the river catchment, we are also thankful to the business community for controlling chemical effluent and a special thanks to the farming interests for acting responsibly in line with the Nitrates Directive which helps reduce the over-enrichment of the water. Leaving a buffer zone at the river bank and not spraying slurry close to the stream has meant that the river no longer gets choked with algae and blanket weed during the summer. We still have issues with N. I. Water Combined Sewage Outflows (CSO’s) which allow untreated sewage to discharge directly into the river during times of heavy rain, considering that the river runs into our drinking water supply!
Thanks to all these efforts the streams and river are improving steadily and the little fish which we stocked after the fish kill are thriving, invertebrate and the rare river water crowfoot plant are returning. Dollaghan and salmon are once again busy on the spawning redds and otters and kingfishers have returned to the catchment.
Danny Kinahan secured an ‘Adjournment’ at Stormont recently on behalf of the Trust to discuss river pollution and a lively debate ensued with Paul Girvan, Stephen Agnew, Nelson Mc Causland, Mitchel Mc Laughlin and Alex Attwood amongst others contributing. Two days later we were up at Stormont again for the Coca-Cola Tidy Northern Ireland Awards to receive a ‘Highly Commended’ Award.
It has been a busy but rewarding year for the Six Mile Water Trust but my pleasure is being by the river and seeing the wildlife return, I would like to think that we should cherish and protect what little habitat is left for our wildlife, this is our natural heritage, part of the fabric of Northern Ireland and surely worth protecting,
Michael Martin
Six Mile Water Trust
Well done Michael
