Lough Neagh

[SaffronSports]

Just a reminder that all 4 main parties voted against a tightening of rules around penalties last week in Stormont. Only Alliance and PBP voted for environmental enforcement rules to once again be brought back in line with EU counterparts.

The 4 parties opposed it twice at committee level and now publicly in the chamber. Only 35 farmers would have been affected by the change in 2023, ie a tiny subset who repeatedly broke the rules.

Please don't tell me how farmers are ruining the countryside when your elected representatives can't even make the most basic attempt to implement change. Bear all this in mind this summer when Lough Neagh turns to glue again and SF/DUP bullshit merchants tell us all how they've "set up a committee" and are "finding a way forward".

Stormont is  not fit for purpose.  End of story

When we take over, it's going to a rude awakening for a lot of people!
Our efficiency drive will put a bit of order on the place.
There's even been talk of building a Lough Neagh Riviera resort.

You sending the prods to Egypt?

[LC]

Just a reminder that all 4 main parties voted against a tightening of rules around penalties last week in Stormont. Only Alliance and PBP voted for environmental enforcement rules to once again be brought back in line with EU counterparts.

The 4 parties opposed it twice at committee level and now publicly in the chamber. Only 35 farmers would have been affected by the change in 2023, ie a tiny subset who repeatedly broke the rules.

Please don't tell me how farmers are ruining the countryside when your elected representatives can't even make the most basic attempt to implement change. Bear all this in mind this summer when Lough Neagh turns to glue again and SF/DUP bullshit merchants tell us all how they've "set up a committee" and are "finding a way forward".

Stormont is  not fit for purpose.  End of story

+1

Sometimes politics is about making the hard calls regardless how it impacts people.

Not all of the time but a lot of the time when it comes to hard calls here our politicians can not / will not do it.

Something needs done with Lough Neagh, do you think the Scottish Government would do nothing if it was Loch Ness.

[trueblue1234]

Is it the politicians or the political system at fault the most?

[armaghniac]

Is it the politicians or the political system at fault the most?

or the voters perhaps? People within smell of Lough Neagh will continue to vote SF or the DUP although they are doing nothing about it.

[Last Man]

Is it the politicians or the political system at fault the most?

or the voters perhaps? People within smell of Lough Neagh will continue to vote SF or the DUP although they are doing nothing about it.

Doesn't matter who you vote for imo what actually gets one is above their pay grade and they just go along with it.

[armaghniac]

Is it the politicians or the political system at fault the most?

or the voters perhaps? People within smell of Lough Neagh will continue to vote SF or the DUP although they are doing nothing about it.

Doesn't matter who you vote for imo what actually gets one is above their pay grade and they just go along with it.

Not true, if the parties believed that they would lose votes then they would take an interest in this. No way would a big lake in the 26 turning blue-green not become an issue.

[Sportacus]

Is it the politicians or the political system at fault the most?

or the voters perhaps? People within smell of Lough Neagh will continue to vote SF or the DUP although they are doing nothing about it.

Doesn't matter who you vote for imo what actually gets one is above their pay grade and they just go along with it.

Not true, if the parties believed that they would lose votes then they would take an interest in this. No way would a big lake in the 26 turning blue-green not become an issue.

They'd rather debate some random motion all day, rather than actually make a decision on anything. Bunch of spoofers.

[AustinPowers]

Lough Neagh as bad  as ever again this summer it seems

Is anything at  all being done?

Will it ever be done?

The state of the  Lough  kind of sums up  the  failed sectarian statelet  and  the totally inept shower of spoofers  in charge

What an absolute  cesspit. The Lough is  pretty bad too.

[JimStynes]

Lough Neagh as bad  as ever again this summer it seems

Is anything at  all being done?

Will it ever be done?

The state of the  Lough  kind of sums up  the  failed sectarian statelet  and  the totally inept shower of spoofers  in charge

What an absolute  cesspit. The Lough is  pretty bad too.

What can be done at this stage? How do you even go about fixing the likes of this situation. It will surely take generations to sort. I live beside the lough and always remember summers spent with young owns swimming in the lough where I live (even then I didn't think it was the cleanest place). Very sad to see it in its current state!

[DaleCooper]

Farms , businesses should be seized if responsibility can be proven..which would be a fair task. Goes to show you need good [and strong] government. Theres no excuse for it whatsoever.

[Wildweasel74]

Remember walking the small rivers running into the Ballinderry river for yrs when I was younger. Back when even them rivers were full of fish. Even dredged it a few times. They never had that issue then. Was walking along the river at Clady the other nite had long stretchs covered in algae. Anywhere where the water still the algae blooming! Monvagher canal, Portna locks etc all have a built up of Algae.

[Hereiam]

I have buckets here with just stagnant rain water in them and they have blue green algae growing in them. My guess is with the warming climate this is a consequence and will be seen in most fresh water lakes

[ONeill]

Lough Neagh as bad  as ever again this summer it seems

Is anything at  all being done?

Will it ever be done?

The state of the  Lough  kind of sums up  the  failed sectarian statelet  and  the totally inept shower of spoofers  in charge

What an absolute  cesspit. The Lough is  pretty bad too.

Even before all this, I'd been harping on (to the wife) that Lough Neagh was so underused. It'll never be a Lake Garda, but there was so much potential there for tourism right along the shores.

No one was interested.

[seafoid]

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/sam-mcbride/how-your-christmas-turkey-is-killing-lough-neagh-the-lie-of-cheap-meat-contains-a-hidden-cost-which-can-no-longer-be-ignored/a1877892150.html

For half the year, Lough Neagh is a luminescent green swamp of stenching toxicity. For the other half of the year it's water is deceptively clear but no less polluted as the toxic cyanobacteria feeding on the excrement and fertiliser being flushed into the lough sinks down in the water, waiting for the perfect condition to rise again and explode into life.Two days ago Stormont's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) published a report on the state of Northern Ireland's rivers and lakes. In short, they're in crisis.



Lough Neagh's pollution as seen at Battery Harbour near Cookstown in August (Niall Carson/PA)

This is no natural disaster; the report accepted that "human activities continue to put considerable pressure on Northern Ireland's water environment".

Just 29 % of our surface water bodies are achieving 'good' ecological status; none of them are achieving 'good' ratings for chemical pollution. Both indicators are still getting worse. We haven't even turned the corner towards a cleaning-up process which will take decades and cost billions.

Even the Department of Agriculture — long a champion of intensive farming — now admits that agriculture is polluting 67% of our water bodies and intercoastal basins. Elements of Stormont became quasi-lobbyists for intensive agriculture in Northern Ireland, despite knowing the vast environmental problems it involved.

Ten years ago a senior Stormont official privately referred to helping poultry behemoth Moy Park — which controls almost all of the chicken meat market in Northern Ireland — as a strategic imperative akin to how government funded the Challenger tank.

Stormont in its supplicant naivety viewed a hugely profitable multinational company shovelling money to its shareholders in Brazil and the USA as something not dissimilar to the defence of the country.

As well as pollution by intensive factory farms themselves, last year a BBC Spotlight investigation uncovered that Moy Park has hundreds of times breached legal pollution limits for water discharges from its slaughterhouses.The grossly short-term thinking which has prompted this intensive agriculture boom has consequences which will be borne by us and by our children for decades to come.

Even if all the pollution entering Lough Neagh was to stop immediately — and it's still getting worse — it is believed that two decades would need to pass before it might be in a good state of health.

[Sportacus]

Meanwhile Stormont make £100k available to assist the eel men.  A hundred thousand - wouldn't buy you a back garden these days.