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Save Lough Neagh

The awareness raising was successful. The word is out there across multiple newspapers. There's no excuses. If you don't know, you have been deliberately looking away. Lough neagh isn't dying, it's being killed.



40.7% of the country's drinking water comes from this one body of water. This is over half of the capital city, Belfast's, drinking water. Why should you care? Why are people worried about this?



There is extensive blue/green aglae (cyanobacteria) devastating the waterways surrounding Lough neagh, and the lough itself. It's causing animal deaths, human sickness, closures of beaches and local businesses, the list goes on. This summer, these levels reached the highest since the 1970s.


This is the same Lough that has deep roots in Irish mythology, and was a great influence for nobel laureate Séamus Heaney. It is a vital part of Irish culture and our history.



How does this even happen?


Two-thirds of the phosphate that ends up in the lough originates from slurry and other runoff from surrounding farmland, while 24% of this is from human sewage discharged into the lough’s catchment area. Other factors, including industrial sand extraction, may also be accelerating the eutrophication process that has created the appropriate conditions for the algae to flourish.



On top of this, due to the climate crisis, we experienced the wettest july since records began which immediately turned to record breaking heat in August, accelerating the growth of this algae.



The NI Water board have claimed that water drawn from the lough’s three main abstraction points is safe to drink – despite its cloudy appearance, “musty taste” and occasional odour in certain areas. However, to make this drinkable, 13 different chemicals have to be added to the water, which is not only incredibly unhealthy, it costs us 28 million a year to do.



Many have disputed this, and also agree that the 40.7% of the population affected by this deserve better water quality. This is also only the beginning, if we do not immediately put measures in place, this water will go from unpleasant but tolerable for humans through chemical treatment, to completely undrinkable.



Groups such as Save Lough Neagh, Fridays for Future, Progressive Politics NI and others have come together to demand that the Lough is protected. There have been many protests, and there will be more. We welcome everyone and anyone to get involved.



The demands from these activists are as follows:


- End private ownership of the Lough.


- Establish and independent environmental protection agency with power to hold polluters to account.


- End commercial sand extraction.


- Rights of nature status for Lough neagh.


- Invest in sewage infrastructure to prevent NI Water dumping mass amounts of interested waste.




To read more articles on our most recent action, check out:


Belfast telegraph:



Belfast Live:



Irish News:


Please consider donating to my GoFundMe so as I have the capacity to continue raising awareness/afford rent. 50% of this will also go to charity.




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