Tag Archives: Feidhlim Harty

Despite reassurances from Uisce Éireann in recent days that the water supply in North Clare is safe to drink, many hundreds of people are refusing to drink the tap water in the area, complaining of issues with taste and a strong odour. Just outside of Ennistymon, Lickeen Lake supplies the Ballymacravan Water Treatment System which provides drinking water to more than 14,000 people in the North Clare area. In early August of this year, a large algae bloom was recorded on the lake. The emergence of this bloom of blue and green algae coincided with a flood of complaints from the people of North Clare about the taste and smell of their drinking water. While algae blooms occur naturally, they are often associated with instances of pollution, especially when excessive nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus enter a waterway. This can happen when chemical fertiliser or animal slurry is washed from farmland into nearby waterways. North Clare resident and hydrology …

Féidhlim Harty, director of an environmental consultancy company tells Bridget Ginnity, how being a bad windsurfer led him to specialising in reed bed system design and other eco-friendly sewage options. For as long as I can remember, my family was interested in environmental things of various sorts, whether it was beach clean-ups, chemical or sewage pollution in Cork Harbour area. My grandmother was Myrtle Allan of Ballymaloe House. When she was president of Euro-Toques, the global society of chefs, she had us children filling envelopes and addressing them to all corners of the globe. We watched the early European legislation on food being developed and it was a real education that you can bring your opinions directly to the table and decisions will be made that reflects that input. I set up my business in constructed wetlands as an activism measure in the ’90s. I wanted to clean up Cork Harbour using reed bed systems, mainly because I was a …

In our most recent Make A Difference article here Bridget Ginnity explored how we can control our consumerism and waste generation. Here she profiles a group and an individual tackling waste in different ways Christy Collins, Shannon Men’s Shed We pick up old stuff from the recycling centre and do them up, bikes, old timber and so on. We use wood we get to build outdoor furniture of the primary schools, buddy benches, picnic benches, bug hotels and so on – maybe we need buddy benches in parks for adults too. We upcycled old steel seats from Shannon park for the new wetlands area, and they’re like new. We are lucky to have a premises in the industrial estate, with three workspaces and a meeting room. The meeting room is the best part of it, it’s great to see men talking, an alternative to the pub We make all kinds of thing. We have a woodturning lathe that is great …