July 21st, 2015 -- Posted in Active, Politics, River Basin Management |
We have responded to the Minister Kelly’s Public Consultation Document and the full text is below.
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Firstly we would like to introduce ourselves and complement you on a superb document which has already created an excellent platform for cooperation. We hope we can offer something useful to you.
We are the River Vartry Protection Society and are formed and constituted based on a common thread running through our lives, the River Vartry. This is the River Basin we are particularly concerned with and knowledgeable about. We are comprised of all the Riparian Owners along the river and neighbours that surround the river. The vision was that if all these people dedicate themselves to protecting the river, and with our children, lock hands and keep all potential dangers away from the river, it will remain healthy and a natural habitat for the generations to come.
We have the knowledge, have researched the history of the River Vartry, and can act as an active resource for this River Basin. We feel that as a EU protected Salmonoid River, it is important that this resource is un-disturbed. We are active in opposing any planning or development within the Vartry River Basin that could damage the River.
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July 9th, 2015 -- Posted in Active, Politics, Polution, River Basin Management, Water Directive |
The most important document for protection of the River Vartry is the EU regulated River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) which 4 years ago, we contributed to. We were pleased with the result as the River Vartry was going to be declared “Heavily Modified”, due to the Reservoir. Because of intervention of the Fisheries this was changed to the Upper and Lower Vartry. The Lower being natural and unmodified, while the Upper was heavily modified.
Without the help of the Fisheries, it would have been the death of the river. The plan had a requirement for defining Compensatory Flows for the river by 2015 but there were four responsible bodies, Wicklow County Council, EPA, Fisheries, and the Dublin Corp. At the time we realised that this was an important decision but would be hard to force to implement as there were four bodies responsible and it would likely fall between the chairs. Time proved us right.
It is not often that I get an opportunity to praise to the Government but Minister Alan Kelly for the Environment has done a superb job at preparing a Public Consultation Document to get public input prior to the Draft of the RBMP. To understand just how much he wishes to do a good job, I quote from the introduction, “There is general acceptance that the governance arrangements put in place to deliver the first cycle of river basin management plans did not work well. Arrangements were overly-complex and responsibilities were poorly defined with no single body having overall responsibility for developing the plans and overseeing delivery of the programmes of measures.” We have great hopes that this second cycle for the RBMP will be much more successful and address some of these weaknesses of the past.
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