EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Chapter 15: Environmental Performance, Policy and Implementation Ireland’s Performance on Water Ireland is not on track to meet its Water Framework Directive objectives for 2021, and achieving full compliance by 2027 will be a major challenge. European Union water legislation puts in place an extensive protective framework to ensure high standards for all water bodies in the EU and addresses specific pollution sources (e.g. from agriculture, urban areas and industrial activities). Water policy and management in Ireland is directed by the Water Framework Directive, which sets an objective of achieving at least ‘good status’ for all its waters by 2015 (or, with extensions, by 2021 or 2027). Ireland adopted its second RBMP in 2018, which sets out the measures to be taken up to 2021 to achieve compliance with Water Framework Directive objectives. Preparation of Ireland’s third RBMP for 2022-2027 is currently underway. Despite a lot of good work being undertaken over the past 20-30 years, Ireland is falling short in achieving the Water Framework Directive ‘good status’ objective. While good progress has been made in tackling the most seriously polluted water bodies in Ireland, overall water quality trends in Ireland’s rivers, lakes and estuaries are a significant cause for concern, as discussed in Chapter 7 and summarised in Table 15.3. Ireland is not on track to meet the Water Framework Directive objectives for 2021, and achieving full compliance by 2027 will be a significant challenge. Nearly half of Ireland’s surface waters are failing to meet their water quality objectives, and high status river sites are in serious decline. The EPA’s recent water quality report 2013-2018 (EPA, 2019) recorded a net decline in 128 river water bodies, or 5.5 per cent, since the previous assessment cycle of 2010-2015. After nearly 15 years of a declining trend in riverine nutrient inputs to marine areas, the trend has started to reverse and nutrient inputs have gradually increased since 2013/2014, linked with losses from agriculture and discharges from wastewater treatment plants. As discussed in Chapter 7, agriculture is the main pressure on water quality in Ireland, followed by hydromorphology and wastewater. Agriculture is a significant pressure for over 50 per cent of waters at risk of not meeting their target of ‘good status’ by 2027, and tackling diffuse agricultural pollution is challenging. The Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advisory Programme was established as part of a more collaborative approach to implementing the second RBMP between 2018 and 2021. The programme provides a free and confidential advisory service to farmers and works alongside the Local Authority Waters Programme to facilitate targeted actions to improve water quality. The Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive sets standards for treating urban wastewater at large urban areas to protect the environment and people’s health. The final deadline for Ireland to comply with this directive was 2005. Despite this obligation, the latest EPA report (EPA, 2020e) found that less than half (44%) of the total wastewater load from Ireland’s large urban areas was treated to the required standards in 2019. The main factor in Ireland’s poor compliance is the failure at Ringsend in Dublin, which treats over 40 per cent of the country’s urban wastewater. Raw sewage continues to be discharged from 35 towns and villages without treatment. Five large towns and cities discharging into sensitive areas, including Cork, did not have the more stringent level of treatment required to remove phosphorus and/or nitrogen. Improvements are needed at 113 priority urban areas to eliminate raw sewage, prevent water pollution, protect freshwater pearl mussels and bathing waters and meet EU standards. The need for Ireland to improve wastewater treatment infrastructure and put an end to direct discharges of raw sewage was highlighted by the Commission in its EIR (Topic Box 15.5). While 95 per cent of Ireland’s bathing waters met the minimum standard of ‘sufficient’ in 2019 and 89 per cent were ‘excellent’ or ‘good’ (EPA, 2020f), the proportion of Irish coastal bathing waters at ‘excellent’ quality (73% in 2019) is below the EU average (85% in 2019) (EEA, 2019b). Urban wastewater is the greatest pressure affecting bathing water, again emphasising the need for urgent and prioritised improvements in the collection and treatment of urban wastewater. Topic Box 15.5 Priority actions for Ireland on Water Quality and Management as Identified by the European Commission (EC, 2019b) n Ensure timely adoption and reporting of RBMPs as well as Flood Risk Management Plans. n Ensure compliance with the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive by ending direct discharges of untreated wastewater. Ensure that wastewater is collected and appropriately treated throughout the country. Complete water infrastructure projects for agglomerations that are in breach of the directive as soon as possible. 399