Loch Neagh, Northern Iron

Bald Rick

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
I see that the monster lake, Loch Neagh, which supplies 40% of Northern Ireland’s fresh drinking water is suffering a Blue Green algae bloom .. which the BBC quite rightly laid at the door of farmers using Agri chemicals

www.bbc.co.uk

Lough Neagh: Environmentalists hold 'wake' after algal blooms

Campaigners say pollution is killing Lough Neagh after blue-green algal blooms over the summer.
www.bbc.co.uk

www.rte.ie

Call for taskforce to deal with Lough Neagh pollution

Two archbishops have called for a task force to tackle a huge pollution crisis in Ireland's biggest inland waterway.
www.rte.ie www.rte.ie

Pass the salt Mildred, I’m going in dry
 
nails

nails

Member
Location
East Dorset
Bald Rick said:
I see that the monster lake, Loch Neagh, which supplies 40% of Northern Ireland’s fresh drinking water is suffering a Blue Green algae bloom .. which the BBC quite rightly laid at the door of farmers using Agri chemicals

www.bbc.co.uk

Lough Neagh: Environmentalists hold 'wake' after algal blooms

Campaigners say pollution is killing Lough Neagh after blue-green algal blooms over the summer.
www.bbc.co.uk

www.rte.ie

Call for taskforce to deal with Lough Neagh pollution

Two archbishops have called for a task force to tackle a huge pollution crisis in Ireland's biggest inland waterway.
www.rte.ie www.rte.ie

Pass the salt Mildred, I’m going in dry
Click to expand...
Algal Blooms can be caused by many things and i would await testing before pointing fingers.
Arch bishops ? They going to get God to help? Trouble is he aint real.:D
 
Baker9

Baker9

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N Ireland BT47
There is a lot more wrong than Algal blooms, infested with Zebra Mussels, Eels have all but gone, like wise the Lough Flies which are the bottom of the food chain. Too much pollution in the lough caused by a number of offenders including NI Water dumping raw sewage into it, local food factories dumping untreated effluent into it, other untreated trade effluent from factories, sand being dredged from the lough bed and also farms. Those are just the pollution problems that I can think of at the moment, there are plenty more.
 
S

spider mike

Member
Saw a post on Facebook where a farmer is going over the figures for pollution going into lough neagh. Unreported results (they don't show farming and nitrates are main culprits anymore) say there's a decline in nitrate pollution and for what ever reason this has lead to some reaction the lough bed releasing a lot of phosphates into the water and the devastating algae bloom. The phosphate is mainly historic pollution that's been accumulated over years and is now being released
 
Baker9

Baker9

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
N Ireland BT47
yoki said:
The ridiculous thing is that there's been a pile of money given to various NGO's around Lough Neagh, but strangely enough they all now claim that they're powerless to do anything about it's problems.

So what were they getting the feckin' money for?
Click to expand...
They were getting the money for "Woke Studies" and other shite that has feck all to do with solving the problem.
 
Y

yoki

Member
Bury the Trash said:
water company dumping sewage is the reason ,
Click to expand...
Not that simple I'm afraid.

The biggest water treatment works in Mid-Antrim is upstream from us and I'm along the river every day, there's no sewage in it.

However, just about every dairy farm in the area now has their cows housed 365 days of the year, with slurry being spread all summer, frequently on to hard ground, with resultant high levels of run-off.

Those same cows being fed ever increasing levels of concentrate as well, Northern Ireland's imports of animal feeds been increasing steadily over the past decades.

Slurry ban not helping either, plenty of good spreading weather during November and January mostly having to be passed up on.

That run-off is all ending up in one place, Lough Neagh.

There may be other factors but agriculture is undoubtedly a huge part of the problem.

No point trying to deny it.
 
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F

Frank-the-Wool

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
East Sussex
Boohoo said:
What unusually high temperatures? 2023 will be remembered by many as the year without a summer
Click to expand...

Yes it is odd that while sun was at times in short supply, the overall average temperature, night and day has been high. Water temperatures in the sea are higher than average for the time of year and I would guess that lakes are the same.
 
FonterraFarmer

FonterraFarmer

Member
Location
Waikato, New Zealand
yoki said:
The ridiculous thing is that there's been a pile of money given to various NGO's around Lough Neagh, but strangely enough they all now claim that they're powerless to do anything about it's problems.

So what were they getting the feckin' money for?
Click to expand...
NGO's normally means a group of self centred pricks who do feck all and achieve nothing!!!
 
Boohoo

Boohoo

Member
Location
Newtownabbey
Frank-the-Wool said:
Yes it is odd that while sun was at times in short supply, the overall average temperature, night and day has been high. Water temperatures in the sea are higher than average for the time of year and I would guess that lakes are the same.
Click to expand...
Screenshot_20230920_072409_Drive.jpg
Screenshot_20230920_072837_Drive.jpg

Was this summer's average temperature that different to last summer's in comparison with the 30 year average? I'm not sure it's enough to make such a difference to Lough Neagh.
Unless the temperature in the lough has been building over time and such a large body of water has been holding that heat until it's reached the ideal temperature for an algal bloom?
Given the number of rivers that run into Lough Neagh I'd say the higher than average rainfall has more to do with it. I crossed three of those rivers yesterday, all three were running brown.
Screenshot_20230920_074000_Drive.jpg
 
Boohoo

Boohoo

Member
Location
Newtownabbey
DrDunc said:
Could you summarise?

Tiktok doesn't let peasant's watch without an account
Click to expand...
I was able to watch without an account, I just can't read the comments. I also can't see the title of the paper published in 2021 that he's quoting but here's a screenshot of the abstract
Screenshot_20230920_074915_Samsung Internet.jpg

He's saying it's been caused by the warm spring and heatwave in June, which I don't remember, and by a reduction in nitrates entering the lough which causes phosphate to be released from the bed of the lough.

Edit, the title of the paper is
'The long-term response of lake nutrient and chlorophyll concentrations to changes in nutrient loading in Ireland's largest lake, Lough Neagh'
 

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