Archive for the 'Wildlife' Category
April 7th, 2017 -- Posted in Active, Ecology, Fish, History, Irish Water, Politics, River Basin Management, Threats, Wildlife |
We have been allowed to present our case in an Oral Hearing. The time and place has not yet been decided but we will post it as soon as we have it. This was granted because of the significant national or local interest. Everyone is invited although space can be limited. We ask you to be present on the day as this illustrates your commitment to the Protection of the River Vartry. Our small river is a “Champion” and shows its diversity in surviving and thriving against strong adversity. We will hopefully be allowed to show some “Never before seen” footage of the river in Spawn this year. We have been careful about showing this, because we feared Irish Water would turn this against us and say, see the River thrives.
Now it is the time to show that nature is miraculous and gives us ample time to correct our ways. Where we would have floods, we had drought this year and have even now though the whole winter still have the same dangerously low water condition. Yet in the only two weeks when the water rose 6-8 inches, the Salmon knew and were waiting even thought it was very early for the Spawn. They knew it would be there only opportunity and we have even had Salmon experts say “You must be mistaken, that is not possible”. Well, I won’t spoil it for you. Come to the meeting and see for yourself. Our beautiful, historic, brave little river still survives. It shouldn’t have to fight and 100 years from now, people will come and marvel at the River that defied all odds.
December 17th, 2016 -- Posted in Active, Ecology, Fish, Irish Water, Politics, Polution, River Basin Management, Threats, Water Directive, Wildlife |
With our Appeal going in on Monday to An Bord Pleanála, we have made the best effort possible to save the River Vartry on behalf of all of you who could see that this was the big battle.
Until our Appeal is accepted and we have the file number from An Bord Pleanála, we cannot publish our Appeal but we can give you a few snippets, should you be in any doubt of why we are fighting. In order to make a determination of Environmental Impacts, Wicklow County Council needed to apply “Best Science Available Principle” and for this they asked Jonathan Sexton Executive Scientist – Water and Environment who works for the Wicklow County Council.
Jonathan Sexton produced his first report on 06/11/2016 which was excepted by Tom Griffin, Senior Executive Chemist with minor changes. However unexplainably, a major revision appeared on the 11/11/2016. The major difference was that in the recommendations an important paragraph disappeared. It said “The Applicant shall maintain the current flow regime of leaking water until such time that flow measurements and modelling have been undertaken to establish a suitable environmental flow regime that takes standards into account. The current flow regime shall use flows of water from the Vartry Reservoir to match current leakage flows from the leakage channel from the filter beds and current leakage flows from the overflow weir from the Reservoir.”
We can only applaud Jonathan Sexton for his sound and well founded suggested condition on the planning. We of course, suggested this approach but he recognised that this was the approach to be taken. Unfortunately “someone” did not agree and put pressure on him to remove this because on the version of the 11/11/2016 it was removed. What was added was the statement of Jonathan Sexton “Considering the importance of the proposal in providing secure drinking water supply to a large region, I recommend…”. Clearly he was not fully in agreement with this decision and but complied to the pressure placed upon him. Below is the full text of his recommendation.
Had this been the only issue with this report, it might pass the scrutiny of An Bord Pleanála as without proof that undo influence was placed by Wicklow County Council on an Independent Science Report. However… If you look below you will see that in the public record is a Science Report that has been altered by an “Unknown Hand“ after being published by Jonathan Sexton. This is sloppy and an unacceptable action by a Planning Authority and we claim makes the whole process in doubt. Were it to happen to you or me on planning for our new house, someone would scream. We are screaming that the Planning Permission is Null and Voided by the hacked Science Report and Wicklow County Council cannot be trusted to perform an unbiased Planning Process on this file.
When you look whom has been crossed out by the “Unknown Hand“, it is Inland Fisheries Ireland and ourselves the Local Stakeholders. Is it not surprising that these are the parties that have strongly opposed what is happening and have questioned the wisdom of the Wicklow County Council going ahead without a proper Independent Environmental Impact Assessment. This illustrates their bias against anyone who opposes themselves and Irish Water. This is not a transparent or adequate process.
Read it for yourself and raise this issue as loud and vocal as you can. We need to prove to An Bord Pleanála that it is not just us, but all of the public that want this decision reversed and sent back for proper analysis. Only this will insure the survival of the River Vartry.
December 11th, 2016 -- Posted in Active, Fish, Irish Water, Politics, Polution, River Basin Management, Threats, Water Directive, Wildlife |
We had a very successful meeting on Friday the 9th of December and were joined in the Ashford Community Centre by 84 people with apologies from another 27 that could not make it. Everyone was actively supporting and we raised €2200 to help with our expenses for the fight at An Bord Pleanála. The approach was agreed and we are meeting with the Barrister to produce the final Appeal and request for an Oral Hearing. The total campaign has raised €3450 euro which has been used for the Barrister and two Ecology consultants in preparing the Appeal.
We had the privilege of having 3 Councillors from Wicklow, Jennifer Whitmore, John Snell, and Steven Matthews who’s clarity and contribution was very much appreciated. They too were very concerned about the performance of the Wicklow County Council in granting permission to Irish Water at this time without an Independent Environmental Impact Assessment.
We reiterated that we feel that the Treatment Works needs upgrading but that this can be done without damage to the River Vartry. This is where we differ with Irish Water. To get to this position it requires the technical knowledge and the study of the river and what changes it can absorb and tolerate. This process was not done and the Wicklow County Council granted permission prematurely before anything was completed. This leaves the River in an unprotect position within Irish Water’s control without conditions.
We will be finalising our Appeal with the Barrister this week and asking for an Oral Hearing. One of the grounds for this is of great national, regional or local concern. For this we need your help. Make your voice heard. Contact me Matthew at Rivervartry.com or go to our Crowd Funding page, https://chuffed.org/project/save-the-river-vartry-from-irish-water. Share this via facebook or twitter and the word will get out.
Thanks to everyone for your support.
November 9th, 2016 -- Posted in Active, Ecology, Fish, Irish Water, Politics, River Basin Management, Threats, Water Directive, Wildlife |
Irish Water have decided to go to a hardline approach and are pulling the TRUMP (no pun intended) card. “People before Fish” and saying “The storage at the Vartry has a limit and if additional water is provided in compensatory flows, it will have an impact on Irish Water’s ability to provide sustainable drinking water supply for the region.” The propose to give 1/3 of the current amount of water that is currently coming from the Roundwood Treatment Works. This is will amount to the death of the River Vartry.
If you are in any doubt about our claim, here are some pictures of the state of the river as it is now in early November. Try to imagine 1/3 of this amount of water over the Weir.
Here is the width of the river going towards Ashford. The stones should not be visible.
If you want to make your voice heard, you can support our Objection by writing to the Wicklow Planning Office, Wicklow County Council, Wicklow Town. Place at the top “In support of River Vartry Protection Society’s Submission on 16363”. Tell them directly what you think.
We have put in our response to Irish Water in the Wicklow County Council under file 16363. You can go to www.eplanning.ie/WicklowCC/SearchExact and type in the file number and then see the submissions under “view scanned files”. The important ones are F.I. Clarification Letter and F.I. Received Doc. which are the Clarification asked by the Wicklow County Council and IWs response. Our response will be up there soon. I have uploaded our response which you can read the full story, if you wish here. FIClarification
We can see that Irish Water have no concern for the Environment and have no intention of preserving the status-quo of the river. It is soon going to be time for a bigger and wider campaign if we are to save the River Vartry from their grasp. We will be doing some “crowd sourcing” for funding in the event we are going to have greater need for experts and legal cost, but for the moment we are following the path and waiting for Wicklow County Council to make a decision by the end of the month on this planning.
October 22nd, 2016 -- Posted in Active, Fish, Irish Water, Politics, River Basin Management, Threats, Wildlife |
We were in negotiation with Irish Water but they decided to suspend negotiations and have a try first if they could get a decision from the Wicklow County Council. They turned in an answer to the Further Information Request with the original abstraction figures of 5ML per day against the currently released 15 ML per day. This would give the River Vartry 1/3 the amount of water in dry weather than we currently have. Anyone seeing the level of the river at the moment, would realise that there will be no fish left after this. With the fish gone, the otters are gone, the badgers are gone, the deer are gone, the herons are gone, the bats are gone, the whole ecosystem is gone, eventually destroying the Murrough. This is not imagination or scare mongering, but will be the reality if this is not fought through the planning system and the courts. Everything on the Vartry System is connected. When the microorganisms are harmed, the invertebrate and small organisms that the fish feed on, disappear. A cascading effect on all of the wildlife results.
According to the data given to us by Irish Water, the River has had 15 ML per day released all year round since 2007. We pointed out that since 2007 the status of the fish as measured by the Irish Fisheries has gone from poor to high quality, as it is now. The fish have adapted to the current regime and are thriving. It is not great when the water is so bad as it is now, but we believe even stressed by lack of oxygen, the fish will survive. Take away 2/3 of the water and they will not! Irish Water points out that these are leaks since 2007 and they do not intend release this need to fix it. We say, we do not want this reduced and they do not have the right to destroy the river.
The Wicklow County Council have again asked for Further Information Clarification on this from Irish Water, supporting our claims. Irish Fisheries and An Taisce have come down strongly against Irish Water’s submission as well. We know however that one should not get too enthusiast about this. We have seen in the past that the Planners often just ask and then regardless of the response, grant permission. If that is the case, we will be in An Bord Pleanala arguing our case for the survival of the River Vartry.
We would like to hear from you and make your voice heard. Join us and add your comment.
June 2nd, 2016 -- Posted in Active, Irish Water, Polution, River Basin Management, Threats, Water Scheme, Wildlife |
The Latest news on the Roundwood Treatment Works Upgrade is that it is on hold until Irish Water answer the Further Information Request by the Wicklow County Council. The Planning Application is on Hold and they have 6 months to answer.
We would like to thank the Wicklow County Council for supporting us in many of our Objections and adding a few of their own. They did not take up the issue of an Independent Environmental Impact Assessment but a decision that this is necessary might come after they receive the answer from Irish Water. They have shown their concern for lack of clarity in the application on Pollution and Abstraction, so could easily conclude that Irish Water are unable to give a proper assessment of the risks involved, as we believe.
We will continue our efforts to make sure that this Upgrade does not happen as it is planned and that the changes required and made before any digger starts and mud flows in the Vartry River.
I have attached the WCC Further Information request below for some interesting reading which illustrates why we are so concerned ourselves and insist that Irish Water must do an EIA.
October 13th, 2009 -- Posted in Active, Wildlife |
A local person who has lived in the area for about 20 years brought up some more issues which we could consider as part of the river preservation. He feels that the river level is more related to Wicklow CoCo taking water via pipes in the dryer summer months, as opposed to the reservoir – he believes that the water level in summer is impacted mostly by this.
Removal of trees from watercourse – last time this was done after the storms, when it was too late. There’s a good chance this will happen again. There’s a lot of heavy timber in the water around Devils Glen. This is something we could easily sort out, and we could arrange a work party to remove this.
Removal of trees from river banks needs to be managed as it impacts on otters.
Mink population wipes out the fish, and they need to be trapped. There’s definitely mink in Devils Glen, but not sure of overall population on river. When mink are removed, the otters move back in.
Conifers planted too close to watercourse drop leaves and that makes the water too acidic.
