The groundwork has been laid for a major restoration of the Ballymacraven River in North Clare, which was devastated by pollution last year.
The Restore Ballymacraven River Association hosted a public meeting in Ennistymon last Friday, and outlined their plans for the river for this year, and into the future.
The river, which is a tributary of the Inagh River, was the site of a significant water pollution event in May of last year, with thousands of fish and other wildlife being killed.
Earlier this year, Uisce Éireann were fined €10,000 for the incident, which threatens the viability of the river’s population of Atlantic salmon and eels among other species.
Local community group, the Restore Ballymacraven River Association, now plans to help restore the waterway, starting with the area around The Glen in Ennistymon.
The first step is to remove a large number of invasive trees from the river bank and replace them with thousands of native trees.
This will help attract some of the smaller invertebrates and insects back into the river, which the fish population traditionally feed upon.
The Restore Ballymacraven River Association have lodged a number of applications for funding to complete this work and hope to begin later this year, after the nesting season has been completed.
“We had a good meeting on Friday night and there is still a lot of interest among the local people in this project,” said spokesperson Kevin Nunan.
“The two real goals of the group are to do what we can for the river but also to keep the local community informed about what we are doing as much as possible. We have set up a website and an Instagram account to let people know about what is happening.
“We have applied for funding for two separate sources at the moment, and we are looking into others. We are seeking funding from the Local Authorities Water Programme and from Inland Fisheries Ireland under their Salmon and Trout Conservation Fund.
“The plan for this year is to work on the lower section of the river, the area known as The Glen locally, around the Falls Hotel and down to the first bridge on the back road to Lahinch.”
One of the first major jobs will be to remove large amounts of cherry laurel from The Glen, a invasive species of hedging which has taken over much of the area in recent years.
“It’s an evergreen and it spreads very quickly, so it tends to prevent light from getting into the water underneath it. This results in the natural habitat beneath it being killed off,” continued Mr Nunan.
“The first step is to go out to tender and secure someone to remove the cherry laurel, and the next step would be to plant something like 2,000 native trees in its place along the river bank.
“A lot of people might wonder what trees have to do with the fish in the river, but trees are critical to reestablishing the habitat for the fish. If the river is clean and the habitat is correct, then hopefully the fish will return to the river.
“The work that we will be doing is along the bank of the river, we wont actually be entering the river, and everything we do will be co-ordinated with the National Parks and Wildlife Service and inland Fisheries Ireland.”
The river bank is also within a Special Area of Conservation so every effort will be made to insure that all actions undertaken by the group are done in an environmentally sensitive manner.
One of the other main goals of the group is it invite local people to take part in the restoration of the river. A number of community events will take place in the months ahead and the group have established a dedicated website at restoreballymacravenriver.com and an Instagram account to keep locals informed on what is going on.
“We will have a number of river clean-ups in the coming months, no definite dates have been decided yet, and we would hope that local people will get involved in that,” said Mr Nunan.
“We would hope to get the local schools involved later this year as well, perhaps the local transition year students might be able to tie in with the river with some of the projects that they might be undertaking.”
A number of local councillors, as well as Senator Timmy Dooley (FF), attended the meeting.
“The public representative were very positive about the project. They suggested contacts for other possible avenues of securing funding through LEADER and other organisations,” said Mr Nunan.
“On the broader perspective, this pollution was from a treatment plant. A lot of the sewage treatment plants are under pressure in the North Clare area and there is a lot of investment needed in the years ahead. So this is going to be an issue.
“The works are ongoing at the treatment plant [in Ennistymon] at the moment and the quality of the water has been good in recent months. So that is good news for the river.”
Andrew Hamilton is a journalist, investigative reporter and blogger who has been working in the media in Ireland for the past 20 years. His areas of special interest include the environment, mental health and politics.