UK’s largest lake faces environmental crisis as rescue plans stall | Pollution

As Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the UK, continues to lock the rescue plans, it continues to record the worst year of potentially toxic algae flowers.

Since a law in the lake is extended to the fisheries of the fisherman again, the income of local fishermen has decreased by 60% since 2023, and this year, according to a government, the growth of Sighobacteria (blue-green algae), which was recorded in Lough and its surrounding water resources, was 139. pollution audience. This is more than a treasure of the number of the same point in 2024 (45). The data includes 400 km2 fresh water Lough, arms and smaller peripheral water bodies, including Portmore Lough and Lough Gullion.

This wide Lough was almost half of all lands in Northern Ireland, along with parts of the two districts in the Republic of Ireland, the number of determinations was slightly lower than the installment of 2024. As of August 25, according to the transfer of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera), there were 35 approved reports compared to 42 in the same period in 2024.

Lough Neagh’s repetitive algae flowers drowning water life is due to excessive phosphorus and nitrogen loading into the Lough system. Sixty percent of them are caused by agricultural sources, including farm flow, fertilizer and animal wastes, while 24% of the dismantling waste water treatment plants and 12% come from septic tank leakage. The remaining 3-4% is thought to come from a number of industrial and home sources around Lough.

The data obtained from the transferred government of Northern Ireland in Stormont, the local people say that this year’s flowers are the worst the worst so far ”throughout the lives of flowers.

Dr Les Gornall, a slurry expert in Lough Neagh’s last major laboratory, said that the algae flowers of Guardian 2025 were “much worse than last year in terms of both the scope of the flowers and the“ odor intensity ”they produce. Gornall, these details are not measured by the findings of Stormont, he added.

Researchers are still trying to determine the effect of these photosyntized bacteria on Lough’s complex ecology. However, Gornall is the secondary effects of pollution, including proliferation. water herbsFed by excess nutrients can now be seen.

Stormont has not published official statistics about phosphorus loads that have entered the Lough system in the last 12 months, but Gornall believed that since last year, Lough Neagh has been going to 16,000 tons and has been kept about 10,000 tons in the water column.

Despite the promises of many actions of politicians, the transfer of Northern Ireland’s transferred government has made progress to fight the reasons behind Lough’s pollution in the midst of some agricultural groups – the sector contributed to more than 60% of general phosphorus pressures – and the public waste water system continued. Human sewage from public network and domestic septic tanks is responsible for approximately 36% of phosphorus inputs.

Daera Minister Andrew Muir He called his colleagues In Northern Ireland’s power -sharing manager, götün Match the words with action ”and support the measures aimed at limiting pollution inputs. The protection of Lough Neagh has become an important yarn of the manager Program for government.

“I feel like my hands were tied behind me in recent months because I didn’t need it,” he said to the state publisher of the Republic of Ireland.

Manager approval last summer last summer “action plan”It is designed to address the pollution in Lough Neagh. However, 23 out of the plan has not yet been implemented.

Some offers Foods Action Program (NAP) has faced significant political opposition in Stormont, such as placing phosphorus boundaries to thousands of farms and introducing unlawed “buffer strips”. A campaign take a napSupported by three major trade unionist party and some Sinn Féin politicians advice When the MLAs return from summer recesses next month, the plans that need to be rethinking.

Meanwhile, Lough sprinkles Neagh from the recurrent pollution crisis. In early this summer, a key fishing in Lough announced that this would happen. extend a ban The most lucrative export capture of the water body during the 2025 season – Eels’s commercial fishing. A Stormont Committee In May, he heard that Fishers’ revenues fell approximately 60% since 2023, and no financial compensation or support package was made.

Discussions with the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, the owner of Lough Neagh’s bed and banks, continued with Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, and a series of offers are taken into consideration for Lough’s future management. Ashley-Cooper, Lough Neagh Development Trust In June, in the midst of interest in natural capital and green financial proposals from groups, including national trust, in favor of a “sustainable financing” model. “We are no longer talking about theoretical concern,” he said. “The environmental crisis in Lough Neagh is for everyone to see.”

However, one Show in Train On Monday, he claims that Lough Neagh is “dead than life” for some private interests.

A participant, 59 -year -old Patsy O’Malley Boyd, said that despite the promises given by Lough stakeholders, the lake was the “priority list”. “But we look at our children and our children.