CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR BELFAST TELEGRAPH NEWSPAPER DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR EVERY DAY

Belfast Telegraph

  • nijobfinder
  • nicarfinder
  • propertynews.com
  • Classified

Linda McKee: How the floods stirred up a silent killer from the depths

Tuesday, 9 September 2008

Local anglers examine the shocking toll of dead fish taken from the river Quoile in Co Down.

Local anglers examine the shocking toll of dead fish taken from the river Quoile in Co Down.

Some unexpected side-effects of the recent flooding are only emerging weeks later. Environment Correspondent Linda McKee looks at the aftermath of the deluge

The other day I settled down to a recording of Gardener’s World — a few weeks old — which included a brief weather forecast for the following day.

Although it warned to be beware of heavy rain, there was little indication of the devastation that would be wreaked on Northern Ireland — bridges and houses submerged, motorists swimming to escape their cars, the Westlink underpass filled to the lip.

Unexpected as those sights were, they weren’t the end of it.

Three weeks later and strange things are still being thrown up by the floods, even though the waters themselves have subsided.

If you’d been waiting on the banks of the Newry Canal or the Quoile last month, you’d have been forgiven for thinking the 10 plagues of Israel were upon us.

First the deluge, then the infestation of dead fish.

Initially there was shock that three major fish kills could have taken place within a week and it was assumed that man-made pollution was to blame. But then a more intriguing culprit emerged.

While one of the incidents was certainly linked to pollution, Northern Ireland Environment Agency officers investigating the fish kill at Moneypenny Lock in the Newry Canal gradually began to suspect another explanation as they were unable to find any traces of pollution in the river or its tributaries.

So far, the working theory is that the floodwaters stirred up the gunk in the bottom of the canal — mud gradually deposited over the years and devoid of oxygen.

That anoxic mud exerted an effect on the river very much like pumping a load of slurry or sewage outfall into the water — stripping the dissolved oxygen out of the water and suffocating the animals that make their home there.

Of these, the most obvious were the hundreds of fish gasping at the surface of the water but the incident will also have had an impact on the tiny invertebrates and bugs that keep the aquatic ecosystem healthy.

It can take years for rivers to recover from such incidents.

The reason why these fish weren’t killed straight away, NIEA says, is that the initial burst of floodwater brought masses of oxygen downstream and it was only later when the water calmed down that the problem with the mud started to emerge.

The organisation says something similar happened in the Quoile River in Co Down — hundreds of fish were killed by an increase in natural organic matter exerting a higher than normal pressure on oxygen levels in the water.

Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie has called for a full investigation into the incident to discover the cause and find out how the fish kill could have been prevented. Could the Rivers Agency have taken any measures in the run-up to the flooding to lessen the impact, she is asking.

Geoff Nuttall, Northern Ireland director of environment group WWF, thinks not — but he does insist that we can take effective action if we think a bit further ahead. “To prevent the flooding in as short a space of time as a month or so might be asking a bit much. But thinking longer ahead there are ways to mitigate the impact of flooding,” he said.

“We are likely to face more flooding incidents in the future, given the predicted weather patterns as a result of climate change, such as more downpours which can lead to flooding.

“We can think about how we mitigate climate change but it’s also about how we adapt to it — that means trying to plan for flooding in a joined-up way, so that we plan our land use and development in a way that factors in the risk of flooding and also the effect on habitats.

“One of the issues is that some of our decisions have been made on one in 30-year flood incidents. The indications are that these are happening more frequently and therefore there is a need to update that. There’s always going to be flooding but we need the most up-to-date information on where that flooding is likely to happen.”

Post a comment

Limit: 500 characters

View all comments that have been posted about this article

Comment
Your details

* Required field

Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP address logged and may be used to prevent further submissions. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by BelfastTelegraph.co.uk's Terms of Use.

Posts submitted in UPPERCASE letters will be rejected.

There is one crucial aspect to the post-flood condition of the Quoile at Downpatrick. Agreed, a turbid, toxic surge of material ran down the river and filled the Quoile Pondage to the point where the fish suffocated or were swept over the dam ..
Now hear this. If the bad water came down from past Inch Abbey it would have destroyed the fish life there.....
Now go to the Belfast Road bridge, park near the Pat Statue and look upstream towards Inch Abbey, on a mild night about 7 pm.
You will see dozens of fish rising to black midges. You might see the otter and kingfisher if you come mid-afternoon.
Now cross the road and see what is moving downstream. Don`t expect much.
Now imagine a release of toxic waste either from the Water Mis-Treatment Plant or from its sludge bank in the backwater just above the Road bridge.
Would that not explain the obvious difference in observable river quality?
How could the fishlife upstream have survived otherwis

Posted by spotter | 29.09.08, 20:28 GMT

Post a complaint

Please note Name and E-mail are required.

Contact details

Columnist Comments

mark_steel

Brown can't even stick to his own nonsense on Afghanistan

Bit by bit, as happened with Iraq, the reasons for staying in Afghanistan slide into gibberish. So Gordon Brown's reasons for the war seem to change every week.

ed_curran

Why defining identities is more than Armalites and Ulster Scots

If you think you're a unionist or a nationalist can you define what you mean?

eamon_mccann

Cannabis: it’s time to stop the lies and start a rational debate

It doesn't require a Leap of faith to support the growing calls for a radical rethink of policy on drugs and in particular on the decriminalisation of cannabis.

eric_waugh

We're stuck with the Assembly . . . and it's no laughing matter

A few evenings ago the Minister of Health at Stormont, Michael McGimpsey, was to be seen on the television news offering his audience what he termed a 'joke'.

Columnist Comments

Columnist Comments

james_lawton

Thierry Henry's confession leaves revolting taste

The Republic of Ireland is entitled to believe it has never seen anything so cynical, so far removed from the spirit of sport, as the devilish hand played by Thierry Henry to deny Giovanni Trapattoni's team a place in the World Cup finals that would have been so thoroughly deserved.

david_healy

Wenger’s way a lesson to all of us

Arsenal are scoring goals galore at the moment. Not exactly what everyone was hoping for at Sunderland ahead of our Premier League game with them tomorrow.

Columnist Comments

frances_burscough

I Iearned a tough lesson from my first digs at uni

My nephew Joe left home this week to go to university. It’s a huge step for a teenager but if anyone can carry it off with aplomb he certainly can.

Columnist Comments

gail_walker

GAA scored an own goal over SF demonstration

Just because it's Nelson McCausland, it doesn't mean he's wrong. The events surrounding that Hunger Strike anniversary rally at Galbally GAA grounds pose very disturbing questions for the organisation.

Columnist Comments

hamish_mcrae

Cost of pay freezes and high taxes was a culture of duplicity, envy and hypocrisy

The Chancellor was right yesterday to dismiss the idea of a High Pay Commission. His phraseology was characteristically mild: he was "not persuaded" of his merits.

Columnist Comments

eric_waugh

Eric Waugh: Why Gareth’s a victim of our failure to tackle drink culture

The case of Gareth Anderson, the teenage victim who has ruined his liver with booze, is agony writ large.

Columnist Comments

lindy_mcdowell

Why we’re now in a panic about the pandemic panic ...

According to the Health Minister, Andy Burnham, the Swine Flu pandemic has led to a pandemic of public panic.

TeleToons

TeleToons by Stevie Lee

Click here for audio version