Lough Neagh ‘dying in plain sight’ due to vast algal blooms

Agencies say toxic blue-green algae, thought to be driven by farm runoff and sewage, recorded at levels not seen since 1970s

Northern Ireland's Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles, has been hit by recorded levels of potentially toxic blue-green algae that regional agencies say have not been seen since the 1970s.

Campaigners say the lake is dying in plain sight" as vast algal blooms choke the aquatic life and bird and insect wildlife plummets.

The blooms are thought to be driven by slurry and other runoff from nearby farmland, as well as discharges of human sewage at the body where Northern Ireland sources nearly half of its drinking water.

A study showing that the temperature of the lough's water has risen 1C since 1995, however, suggests that climate change and clearer waters as a result of an invasive zebra mussel species may also be contributing factors. Environmentalists highlight the additional impacts of industrial sand extraction, activity that has been described as an outlier" case within Europe by UN experts and which may be redistributing toxins in the lough bed.

The lough, which at nearly 400 sq km has a surface area bigger than Malta, and its surrounding wetlands hold a considerable number of domestic and international conservation protections. Campaigners point to a serious lack of regulation and sharply declining wildlife as signs of long-term neglect and unintegrated thinking as regards the lough's management.

A 2013 study by researchers at Queen's University Belfast found that the number of migratory winter birds had dropped by nearly 80% in a decade. It also highlighted a 66% fall in certain insect and snail species inhabiting the lough bed.

Lough Neagh is dying and it's dying in plain sight," said James Orr, Friends of the Earth NI's director. So interrelated and long-term are Lough Neagh's problems that if it were a person it would be described as suffering from multiple organ failure.

How an ecosystem that is so immense, so strategic, so beautiful, so rich in heritage has been ignored, forgotten and abused for decades is the story of wild west exploitation."

About two dozen organisations - spanning devolved government departments, councils and charities - have varying degrees of responsibility for Lough Neagh's management. But these groups are fragmented and siloed, campaigners say, with there being no agency or body that exercises executive control over the lough.

The last major research facility at Lough Neagh, operated mainly by the University of Ulster at Traad Point near Ballyronan along the lough's north-western shores, closed more than a decade ago.

The soil, bed and banks of the lough are owned by the Shaftesbury estate, whose claim to the water body dates back to the Plantation of Ulster in the early 1600s. The current Earl of Shaftesbury, Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, has in recent weeks indicated he would be open to selling the asset.

Devolved administrations have explored public ownership of Lough Neagh a number of times since the 1970s, with the most recent bid floundering a decade ago.