Pádraig Mac Niocaill from PBP Mid Ulster branch describes the toxic algae blooms hitting a disturbing new peak on the largest freshwater lake on this island, the source 40% of the drinking water in the six counties, and the importance of the rally in Antrim town on Thursday August 27th.
The images of birds trapped and choking in the toxic sludge spreading across Lough Neagh are horrifying. People are rightly disgusted by what they are seeing unfold on the lough every day. These scenes are not natural, or an accident. They show the scale of the ecological disaster unfolding in our biggest source of drinking water.
Lough Neagh did not pollute itself. In 2013 Stormont Exec and UFU oversaw the implementation of “Going For Growth”. A strategy to rapidly increase agricultural profits for export. This greed has allowed our waterways to be poisoned, while intensive agriculture and factory farming continue to pour pollution into the waterways that feed it. Factory farming is an existential crisis for small farmers, and they are being backed to the hilt by the likes of the DUP and UFU. We continue to campaign against the massive factory farm planned for Magherafelt close to the shore of Lough Neagh. The recent outcry by complicit parties against the cull of cows in Tyrone is hypocritical while animals in Lough Neagh are dying from their policy.
At the same time as the poisoning from industry, the same executive parties in Stormont who backed Going for Growth are happy to facilitate more water-hungry data centres across the North, such as the Greenscale and Vertiv plants at Foyle Port. It is well known the devastating effects that data centres have on energy and water usage, yet Stormont thinks it should be a priority.
There is money for data centres. There is money for factory farms. There is money for rampant sand dredging. But when it comes to protecting the water we all depend on, there is apparently no money.
We need serious public investment to restore Lough Neagh, to tackle pollution at its source and properly fund our water infrastructure. That does not mean making ordinary people pay through water charges, we have seen the disaster that led to in England. The calls from Robin Swan and others to “Mutualise” NI Water are nothing more than a halfway house to privatisation, and must be opposed.
Every living thing on this planet needs water to survive. Creating a separate revenue stream from water also risks turning a basic public necessity into a commercial asset, opening the door to the same privatisation model imposed elsewhere. We have seen that disaster play out in England.
If more money is needed, raise it from those who can afford it. Build a fairer rates system based on ability to pay, so that those with the greatest wealth contribute the most. Make the billion pound corporations both profiting from and destroying our precious natural resources pay their share. The recent repression of the Pilgrim’s picket line in Fermanagh cannot be condemned enough. Pilgrims and Moy Park have a long track record of egregious workers rights violations and environmental crimes here, and in South America.
We should not be told there is no money to Save Lough Neagh while corporations are given the green light to pollute the lough and make a profit off it at the same time.
Water is a basic right, not a commodity. Lough Neagh is not a corporate dumping ground. We need public investment, public ownership and democratic control of our water before it’s too late.
Join the movement to put people and planet before profit and support the rally organised by the Save Lough Neagh campaign this Thursday 27th August, Finn McCool statue Antrim, 6pm.