A new Water Action Plan is set to be launched in the coming weeks that will “seek to address pressures arising from agriculture through enhanced inspection and enforcement”, the Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) Water Conference 2024 heard today (Wednesday, June 12).
Fintan Towey, assistant secretary water division, with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH) told the conference that Minister of State with responsibility for nature, heritage, and electoral reform, Malcolm Noonan, will shortly launch the new Water Action Plan 2024 A River Basin Management Plan for Ireland.
According to Towey, the DHLGH has held “intensive engagement” with key stakeholders to finalise the plan.
He also highlighted that the European Union is the “major driver of policy” in relation to water issues and also the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in Ireland.
Addressing delegates at the EPA conference in Galway today, Towey said that “the problem of water pollution is multi-faceted” and that there was no one silver bullet that would deliver a solution.
“Significant progress is being made in advancing the measures that we need to improve water quality but the consequential quality improvements are emerging more slowly than we would like.
“The secret to progress and delivery is a collaborative effort,” he warned.
Water quality
Towey said that the new Water Action Plan will include “a range of actions” that will deliver gains for water quality.
He outlined that the plan is Ireland’s third River Basin Management Plan and sets out the measures that the government and other sectors are taking to improve water quality in groundwater, rivers, lakes, estuarine and coastal waters.
Towey also told delegates at the conference that a key theme of the Water Action Plan 2024 is to protect and improve waterbodies by “implementing the right measure in the right place”.
Fintan Towey, assistant secretary DHLGH; Wayne Trodd, EPA
He said this “targeted proportionate approach” would be underpinned through the development and launch of 46 Catchment Management Work Plans – which will be used to locate measures within each catchment.
According to Towey this is just one of over “150 actions in the plan with most already in the course of implementation and the reminder to commence by the end of this year”.
Specifically in relation to agriculture, he said some of these will address “losses into water of excessive nutrients – nitrogen and phosphorus from farmland”.
One of the actions in the Water Action Plan 2024, but scheduled for next year, is that DHLGH and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) will “oversee the implementation of the stronger and more targeted Nitrates Action Programme (NAP)”.
Another key action will see “local authorities strengthen the inspection and enforcement relating to agricultural diffuse pollution”.
The plan also details that DAFM will undertake 500 to 1,000 inspections per year under the Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) Regulations focused on where the risk of “nutrient impact on water quality is high”.
Inspectors
A total of 57 new inspectors in local authorities have been allocated for the National Agricultural Inspection Programme (NAIP) and five new staff have also been allocated to the EPA to oversee the programme.
According to the Water Action Plan 2024 the department will also publish an Agricultural Sectoral Action Work Plan to “reduce nitrogen losses to waters in areas where levels are increasing or are too high, and to bring nitrogen, phosphorous and sediment losses to water from agricultural sources within sustainable levels by 2027”.
It also details that DAFM will continue to promote water-related policies in relation to forestry including “support measures that have a clear role in relation to the protection of water”.