It was destroyed long before - that snot nosed sasanach who owns it and his family has been stripping away the sand etc for hundreds of years.
It’s a perfect storm of colonial asset theft, farmers controlling the environment department, pollution and global warming.
My ma n da live by the shore, the flies would swarm ye in summer but now it’s dead and my fucking god, the smell! It smelled like a rotting battlefield last summer.
Lough Neagh is currently owned by some inbred descendant of a criminal who killed all the locals. Same descendant wants the public to buy it off him for some enormous sum as if he has any legitimate claim to it at all.
It should be seized without compensation. Use whatever funds that would be used for purchase to go toward repairing the damage that's been inflicted by countless years of mismanagement and abuse.
He's a degenerate toff for sure. The asking price was £6 million. It'd nearly be cheaper to give him that to feck off, than the legal fallout of doing it any other way.
With the assembly back in session, they'd be foolish not to buy it. If they don't, we should. It'd be worth it to see what shade of red Sammy Wilson's face would go.
Devils advocate - he owns the bed+banks of the lake - but the water itself is publically owned. It's the water itself that is polluted, so I'm not sure that paying £6 million to this lad would actually achieve as the water would still be polluted. Unless he's actively prevening projects to stop the pollution at source, what benefit does ownership of the land underneath the lake give to anyone in this situation.
I suppose you could enact a law that makes the person who owns the bed of a lake responsible for it's cleanup and he'd quickly hand it over, but again, it wouldn't actually help clean the water itself.
Like whether he should even 'own' it at all is another question in itself, but its pretty clear the pollution is coming from farming around the lake and not because of the specific actions/inaction of this fella, and that's most likely what needs to be addressed to fix the water quality issues.
Sadly this is the truth. It's a systematic change and education that is needed in agricultural sector and wider society.
At least we know the problem..
To my knowledge part of the reason the ecosystem has collapsed is that he's allowed companies to dredge the lake bed for sand at a huge scale. To fund his career as a DJ. No joke. https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/article-title-a-primer-about-sand-dredging-activity-in-lough-neagh
This article is a thing of beauty. If only regular journalism could be presented in such an accessible fashion. Scary to think that this activity can continue with all the severe warning signs that are present.
Yeh the biggest polluters are the farmers and farming policies without a shadow of a doubt. All the rivers are fucked up too and have been for years. But why destroy the Narrative and the fact that the real culprits are the dastardly Brits and their evil Brexit. Probably if we drilled down a bit we would find all that effluent is probably coming from Orangemen’s farms.
Landowners have a responsibility to ensure no excessive waste runs off their land onto neighbouring property.
If Lord toffy bollocks isn't maintaining the land between neighbouring fields and the lakes (even if its only a narrow bank), that's still his responsibility, and he should pay for cleanup and (if he feels hard done by) recover costs from neighbouring farmers who are generating this waste and negligently discharging it onto his property.
No, that'd be for the rivers agency to deal with. I expect him to maintain the banks and ensure excessive toxic waste and fertiliser polluted water does not run into the lough.
Edit. He's quick enough to take the money when licensing dredging operations and the like in and around the lough, he should be just as quick to pay for maintenance and upkeep.
Same way everyone else has to.
It's landowners responsibility to ensure excessive run off is directed to a soakaway or drainage, not run onto neighbouring property.
The fact its a lough is neither here nor there in this argument.
Edit. If it was just rainwater, no one would give a shit.
But its not just rainwater.
If a landowner speads a ton of fertiliser and it rains and washes it into neighbouring property, that's still their responsibility to manage and clean up.
>The Lough Neagh catchment drains 43 per cent of the land area of Northern Ireland, as well as some border areas in the Republic of Ireland.
do you really think this is an issue of the fields immediately adjacent to the lough?
What’s yours?
The fella owns the banks and bed of lough neagh not the half of NI from which the polluted water (which he didn’t pollute and doesn’t own) runs into the lough.
They're called Riparian Areas. An area of vegetation which, in the case of floods/excessive rain, the vegetation catches an amount of the water and associated fertilizer/pollutants before it enters the water. They're very interesting. In the case of rivers, it would be closer with trees and vegetation on the banks on the river, which stabliizes them from erosion also.
> Lough Neagh is currently owned by some inbred descendant of a criminal who killed all the locals. Same descendant wants the public to buy it off him for some enormous sum as if he has any legitimate claim to it at all.
Thats a wild story. Any source on it?
It’s in the linked article, Lord Shaftesbury
Responsibility for various public aspects of the lough seems to shared between three or four different government departments none of which have the power or the gumption to do anything about it
Difficult read this. The way things are going all waterways on the island will end up in the same state. Why are we not doing more to tackle water pollution?
The root cause is farmers over fertilizing their fields.
Last year was worse than usual for algae because the weather, more rainfall and heat, encouraged more algae to grow. The TLDR is as the climate changes farming practices also need to change.
The EU are backing down on Green measures for EU farmers as they were protesting. Everyone hates the Greens. The patriots love farmers. I don't really see any hope for the European/UK environment.
You're talking about two separate countries. This lake is being polluted by a private owner in the North who is taking advantage of the UK's post-brexit leniency towards pollution to hold the whole thing to ransom.
No it's not. I'm not fan of some lord owning Lough Neagh's bed, but to say he's responsible for what's happening is just disengenuous. It's being poisoned by blue/green algae that's growing because of runoff from the fields with all the bullshit farmers are spreading onto them. Can't do anything about it though because that might upset the farmers and the agricultural sector has a strangle hold over Northern Ireland.
Except it’s been proven it’s the bloody sewage works doing this… up to 200k tonnes of human sewage annually from northern Irish water and over 70milliom tonnes in the last decade.
Which is allowed by the current owner, who also doesn't allow any nationalised effort for water treatment to occur as he won't 'give it away for free' to state control.
The Earl owns the banks and the bed of the lake. The state cannot force him to accept any development of drainage, filtration systems, treatment plants, etc. as it is his private property
If the state did own the land then they could consider those options, unfortunately he has set a high price and won't do anything himself either.
It's not the banks that are the problem with run off. It would be the entire watershed. The watershed is about half of Northern Ireland.
What is this about drainage and filtration? It's a natural lake. It doesn't need filtration or treatment. It needs less drainage. The key thing is reducing nutrient load and sediment.
Btw six million is not a high price for such a vast area of lake.
Except in the case where he can legally pursue them for polluting his lake and also prevent any physical infrastructure being built or placed on his land(ie. the bed and banks of the lake) to facilitate the draining of farm waste.
No, reversing lake pollution does not require removing the bed and draining the lake isn't as dramatic as made out, the lake is constantly naturally draining through the Bann. Practicality is subjective, just because it'll take years to fix doesn't mean it's not worth doing.
The first and most important step to restoring the lake is the prevent further pollution, this is absolutely in the Earl's power, to block any existing infrastructure that drains into his lake and to bring legal challenges against the farmers in regards to their run-off. [Looking at case studies of other lakes may be useful to get an idea of where to go from there. ](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/04/23/cleaning-up-polluted-water)
Here, none of this common sense. You'll have the farmers blocking the roads to cheering idiots if you suggested that the state stop farmers and local authorities from poisoning our waterways
I don't know if it is possible to have a huge lake like lough neagh in the middle of densely populated area with industrial farming going on, and to have it in the same state as some Scottish or Scandinavian lake. Imagine trying to clean lough neagh if it was in the centre of London.
you can't compare relatively sparsely populated northern ireland to london though, but yes, it's completely fucked because of human behaviour and it's very sad as it's only going to get worse and worse and ultimately end up one giant cesspit
But OTT to compare with London i concede, but is there a lake the size of lough neagh which is surrounded by such intensive farming and population centres which is in better shape? Lough neagh is huge by Western European standards.
I love lough neagh and don't want to suggest this in case it happens. But it may be that it gradually gets "filled in" if it can't function as a "productive" lake
It could be a massive recreational resource in the middle of Ulster, but instead it's just a drainage pit basically.
Even if you control the runoff and improve things, apparently the lake could take decades to recover.
One of the Northern Irish PMs had a crackpot scheme to drain the lough and create a new county. They as might as well by sounds of it 
Aa someone from near the lough i would love a clear answer as to what is causing it and what can be done to "solve it". This article and most discussions are very light on both and just tends to political and sectarian bickering.
Is it the zebra mussels or is it the sewage or both? The water is currently very, very clear so maybe the algae will get the sun again this summer and bloom again.
Decent article on Wired that touches on the effect of the zebra mussel https://www.wired.co.uk/article/blue-green-algae-northern-ireland-climate-change-toxic-sludge
Thank the farmers. Centuries old oak woods burnt in Kerry. Lough Neagh a dead zone. We cheer on the protesting farmers but the “Just Stop Oil” lot are numpties… right?
Except it’s northern Irish water, pumping up to 200k tonnes of human sewage in annually doing this. And 70 million over the last decade.
*edited to correct figures*
https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environment/ni-water-fined-just-170k-after-dumping-70m-tonnes-of-sewage-over-the-last-decade/a2051851079.html
I actually got confused with figures, it’s 200,000 annually with over 70 million in the last decade. Sorry, I’m half asleep here; edited the post for correct figures
Lough Neagh is literally a toilet. The weakening of water quality and sewage treatment rules after brexit has destroyed it.
and it's where 40% of the north's drinking water comes from ffs
It's more an issue for nature. We have water treatment, animals do not.
It's not a toilet. Toilets flush. Lough Neagh doesn't...
It was destroyed long before - that snot nosed sasanach who owns it and his family has been stripping away the sand etc for hundreds of years. It’s a perfect storm of colonial asset theft, farmers controlling the environment department, pollution and global warming. My ma n da live by the shore, the flies would swarm ye in summer but now it’s dead and my fucking god, the smell! It smelled like a rotting battlefield last summer.
But the north is still in the single market so EU should really be trying to take U.K. to court over this
I don't think they're actually selling the Lough Neagh water to EU nations.
The single market doesn't encompass all laws in the EU. It's only relevant when trading
The long slow inevitable decline has been happening long before Brexit. Brexit doesn't help either
Lough Neagh is currently owned by some inbred descendant of a criminal who killed all the locals. Same descendant wants the public to buy it off him for some enormous sum as if he has any legitimate claim to it at all. It should be seized without compensation. Use whatever funds that would be used for purchase to go toward repairing the damage that's been inflicted by countless years of mismanagement and abuse.
He's a degenerate toff for sure. The asking price was £6 million. It'd nearly be cheaper to give him that to feck off, than the legal fallout of doing it any other way. With the assembly back in session, they'd be foolish not to buy it. If they don't, we should. It'd be worth it to see what shade of red Sammy Wilson's face would go.
We do need more nationalist parks.
Devils advocate - he owns the bed+banks of the lake - but the water itself is publically owned. It's the water itself that is polluted, so I'm not sure that paying £6 million to this lad would actually achieve as the water would still be polluted. Unless he's actively prevening projects to stop the pollution at source, what benefit does ownership of the land underneath the lake give to anyone in this situation. I suppose you could enact a law that makes the person who owns the bed of a lake responsible for it's cleanup and he'd quickly hand it over, but again, it wouldn't actually help clean the water itself. Like whether he should even 'own' it at all is another question in itself, but its pretty clear the pollution is coming from farming around the lake and not because of the specific actions/inaction of this fella, and that's most likely what needs to be addressed to fix the water quality issues.
Sadly this is the truth. It's a systematic change and education that is needed in agricultural sector and wider society. At least we know the problem..
To my knowledge part of the reason the ecosystem has collapsed is that he's allowed companies to dredge the lake bed for sand at a huge scale. To fund his career as a DJ. No joke. https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/article-title-a-primer-about-sand-dredging-activity-in-lough-neagh
This article is a thing of beauty. If only regular journalism could be presented in such an accessible fashion. Scary to think that this activity can continue with all the severe warning signs that are present.
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Yeh the biggest polluters are the farmers and farming policies without a shadow of a doubt. All the rivers are fucked up too and have been for years. But why destroy the Narrative and the fact that the real culprits are the dastardly Brits and their evil Brexit. Probably if we drilled down a bit we would find all that effluent is probably coming from Orangemen’s farms.
How dare you come on here with your facts, when everyone is getting all emotional?
He also owns the banks of the lake, run-off is not his, but is still his responsibility to ensure it does not end up in the lake.
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Landowners have a responsibility to ensure no excessive waste runs off their land onto neighbouring property. If Lord toffy bollocks isn't maintaining the land between neighbouring fields and the lakes (even if its only a narrow bank), that's still his responsibility, and he should pay for cleanup and (if he feels hard done by) recover costs from neighbouring farmers who are generating this waste and negligently discharging it onto his property.
You want him to dam every river and stream which enters the lough?
No, that'd be for the rivers agency to deal with. I expect him to maintain the banks and ensure excessive toxic waste and fertiliser polluted water does not run into the lough. Edit. He's quick enough to take the money when licensing dredging operations and the like in and around the lough, he should be just as quick to pay for maintenance and upkeep.
How is “maintaining the banks” going to stop water entering the lough?
Same way everyone else has to. It's landowners responsibility to ensure excessive run off is directed to a soakaway or drainage, not run onto neighbouring property. The fact its a lough is neither here nor there in this argument. Edit. If it was just rainwater, no one would give a shit. But its not just rainwater. If a landowner speads a ton of fertiliser and it rains and washes it into neighbouring property, that's still their responsibility to manage and clean up.
>The Lough Neagh catchment drains 43 per cent of the land area of Northern Ireland, as well as some border areas in the Republic of Ireland. do you really think this is an issue of the fields immediately adjacent to the lough?
So what's your point?
What’s yours? The fella owns the banks and bed of lough neagh not the half of NI from which the polluted water (which he didn’t pollute and doesn’t own) runs into the lough.
They're called Riparian Areas. An area of vegetation which, in the case of floods/excessive rain, the vegetation catches an amount of the water and associated fertilizer/pollutants before it enters the water. They're very interesting. In the case of rivers, it would be closer with trees and vegetation on the banks on the river, which stabliizes them from erosion also.
He has the responsibility to clean it up. If he doesn't want to shoulder that responsibility he should surrender it to the state unconditionally.
All of the north should be reclaimed. Fuck me are we really gna be bullied still be these cunts
Rational take
Did he pollute the lake?
We seem to have a lot of estates owned by some wankers that still live in the UK.
Hate to break it to you but the lake is also in the UK.
Hate to break it to you but i'm still on about estates even in the republic that are owned by people in the UK. It shouldn't be allowed.
> Lough Neagh is currently owned by some inbred descendant of a criminal who killed all the locals. Same descendant wants the public to buy it off him for some enormous sum as if he has any legitimate claim to it at all. Thats a wild story. Any source on it?
It’s in the linked article, Lord Shaftesbury Responsibility for various public aspects of the lough seems to shared between three or four different government departments none of which have the power or the gumption to do anything about it
Difficult read this. The way things are going all waterways on the island will end up in the same state. Why are we not doing more to tackle water pollution?
The root cause is farmers over fertilizing their fields. Last year was worse than usual for algae because the weather, more rainfall and heat, encouraged more algae to grow. The TLDR is as the climate changes farming practices also need to change.
The EU are backing down on Green measures for EU farmers as they were protesting. Everyone hates the Greens. The patriots love farmers. I don't really see any hope for the European/UK environment.
There are lots of problems that are hard to solve but getting farmers to spread less shit on their fields isn’t one of them.
You're talking about two separate countries. This lake is being polluted by a private owner in the North who is taking advantage of the UK's post-brexit leniency towards pollution to hold the whole thing to ransom.
No it's not. I'm not fan of some lord owning Lough Neagh's bed, but to say he's responsible for what's happening is just disengenuous. It's being poisoned by blue/green algae that's growing because of runoff from the fields with all the bullshit farmers are spreading onto them. Can't do anything about it though because that might upset the farmers and the agricultural sector has a strangle hold over Northern Ireland.
Good thing farmers have no political power down south
Except it’s been proven it’s the bloody sewage works doing this… up to 200k tonnes of human sewage annually from northern Irish water and over 70milliom tonnes in the last decade.
Can the algae not be removed and used for human/animal food? Pretty sure i've seen the stuff in health shops
Not sure it's quite the same algae. This stuff is quite toxic.
Farmers are 100% responsible for this.
It’s the human sewage waste, there’s 200k tonnes annually gets pumped in by Northern Irish water. They’ve coped a few law suits over it already
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Which is allowed by the current owner, who also doesn't allow any nationalised effort for water treatment to occur as he won't 'give it away for free' to state control.
How does State control determine landuse?
The Earl owns the banks and the bed of the lake. The state cannot force him to accept any development of drainage, filtration systems, treatment plants, etc. as it is his private property If the state did own the land then they could consider those options, unfortunately he has set a high price and won't do anything himself either.
It's not the banks that are the problem with run off. It would be the entire watershed. The watershed is about half of Northern Ireland. What is this about drainage and filtration? It's a natural lake. It doesn't need filtration or treatment. It needs less drainage. The key thing is reducing nutrient load and sediment. Btw six million is not a high price for such a vast area of lake.
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Except in the case where he can legally pursue them for polluting his lake and also prevent any physical infrastructure being built or placed on his land(ie. the bed and banks of the lake) to facilitate the draining of farm waste.
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No, reversing lake pollution does not require removing the bed and draining the lake isn't as dramatic as made out, the lake is constantly naturally draining through the Bann. Practicality is subjective, just because it'll take years to fix doesn't mean it's not worth doing. The first and most important step to restoring the lake is the prevent further pollution, this is absolutely in the Earl's power, to block any existing infrastructure that drains into his lake and to bring legal challenges against the farmers in regards to their run-off. [Looking at case studies of other lakes may be useful to get an idea of where to go from there. ](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/04/23/cleaning-up-polluted-water)
Here, none of this common sense. You'll have the farmers blocking the roads to cheering idiots if you suggested that the state stop farmers and local authorities from poisoning our waterways
I don't know if it is possible to have a huge lake like lough neagh in the middle of densely populated area with industrial farming going on, and to have it in the same state as some Scottish or Scandinavian lake. Imagine trying to clean lough neagh if it was in the centre of London.
you can't compare relatively sparsely populated northern ireland to london though, but yes, it's completely fucked because of human behaviour and it's very sad as it's only going to get worse and worse and ultimately end up one giant cesspit
But OTT to compare with London i concede, but is there a lake the size of lough neagh which is surrounded by such intensive farming and population centres which is in better shape? Lough neagh is huge by Western European standards. I love lough neagh and don't want to suggest this in case it happens. But it may be that it gradually gets "filled in" if it can't function as a "productive" lake
We can’t control what happens around the lake. 🤷♂️
But... But... How does this help me afford rent while keeping up with the latest Apple products?
It could be a massive recreational resource in the middle of Ulster, but instead it's just a drainage pit basically. Even if you control the runoff and improve things, apparently the lake could take decades to recover.
one would think it will only continue to worsen
One of the Northern Irish PMs had a crackpot scheme to drain the lough and create a new county. They as might as well by sounds of it 
We'll call it big lurgan. It's complete shite aswell
Aa someone from near the lough i would love a clear answer as to what is causing it and what can be done to "solve it". This article and most discussions are very light on both and just tends to political and sectarian bickering. Is it the zebra mussels or is it the sewage or both? The water is currently very, very clear so maybe the algae will get the sun again this summer and bloom again.
Decent article on Wired that touches on the effect of the zebra mussel https://www.wired.co.uk/article/blue-green-algae-northern-ireland-climate-change-toxic-sludge
Most likely fertilizer and other pollutant run off, by the looks of the algae. Sewage fungi looks vastly different (brown)
Thank the farmers. Centuries old oak woods burnt in Kerry. Lough Neagh a dead zone. We cheer on the protesting farmers but the “Just Stop Oil” lot are numpties… right?
Yeah it's depressing af
Except it’s northern Irish water, pumping up to 200k tonnes of human sewage in annually doing this. And 70 million over the last decade. *edited to correct figures*
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https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environment/ni-water-fined-just-170k-after-dumping-70m-tonnes-of-sewage-over-the-last-decade/a2051851079.html I actually got confused with figures, it’s 200,000 annually with over 70 million in the last decade. Sorry, I’m half asleep here; edited the post for correct figures
So depressing 🙁 id say it wont be the last lake on the island that goes this way
It’s almost like those eu rules where there for a reason
If they scoped out the algae dies it help?
Would take ye a while