How do we solve Lough Neagh's algae problem?
Edited by Iain McDowell and Nalina Eggert, with reporting by Matt Fox and Finn Purdy, and Rebekah Wilson from Lough Neagh
Edited by Iain McDowell and Nalina Eggert, with reporting by Matt Fox and Finn Purdy, and Rebekah Wilson from Lough Neagh
Live Reporting
All times stated are UK
What is blue-green algae?
Despite its name, blue-green algae is not actually alga. It's a type of bacteria called cyanobacteria, which inhabit fresh and coastal waters and need sunlight, nutrients and carbon dioxide to grow.
With abundant sunlight, still or slow-flowing water and the right amount of nutrients, they can form visible blooms. Those blooms then block the sun from reaching other plants in the water or use up oxygen in the water which, in turn, can suffocate fish.
It's important not to touch blue-green algae - it causes rashes or sickness if swallowed. For pets and other livestock it can be fatal.
Source: Daera
'Lake is worth more dead than alive'
In a closing statement to the BBC's Talkback programme, James Orr of Friends of the Earth says state acquisition of Lough Neagh must be considered.
"The problem is that the lough is worth more dead than alive at the minute," he says.
"The idea that we're continually taking, continually extracting... it's suffering from multiple problems, sand dredging is just one of many issues, illegal peatland extraction [too].
"We need to move towards a better vision for Lough Neagh that deals with all these issues, proper, effective management and regulation is key."
Would an independent environmental protection agency help?
John McClenaghan says the Ulster Farmers' Union does not support such a body.
"Would Lough Neagh have looked any different this year? No, it wouldn't - these algae blooms are not unusual, they are not specific to Northern Ireland," he says.
BBC Talkback’s William Crawley challenges him on the union's stance: "You don't want greater regulation in farming, do you?"
Mr McClenaghan denies that and voices his support for the existing government agencies.
"Say we had a different [body] - we'd have a separate department, we'd have a separate minister, there's every chance that minister would be from a different party from perhaps the [environment] minister.
"We would have concerns that again gets back to the blame game."
William Taylor for Farmers for Action agrees, saying Northern Ireland doesn't need another "quango set-up".
"We need action," he says, adding that Stormont "needs to get up and running, and a strong minister to come in and crack the whip".
"We need a minister that knows his job, knows his brief and makes it happen."
Send grain waste back to international importers - Farmers for Action
The deputy president of the Ulster Farmers’ Union, John McClenaghan, tells BBC’s Talkback programme that “we have to work collectively” to restore Lough Neagh.
He says that all of the parties that have contributed to damaging the lake need to take action.
William Taylor from Farmers For Action agrees. He says his group “expect everybody to pull together” to improve the lough, including corporate grain importers, who he says bring three million tonnes of grain into Northern Ireland.
He suggests excess nutrient-rich waste product needs to be returned to international importers.
"[They] need to go back to Brazil, for example, and get them into proper crop rotation, instead of this business of growing crops for export to places like Northern Ireland,” he says.
“They need to get the nutrients back to farm the land properly, instead of when the land runs out of energy they slash and burn a bit more of the Amazon.”
He also suggests people in their individual homes in Northern Ireland need to clear their cupboards, examine what pollutants they are using and try to cut them in half.
Could Lough Neagh be taken over by someone else?
It’s complicated given so many bodies have interests in the lough. But that has not stopped different administrations considering it over the years.
The Lough Neagh Partnership has also been given a grant to carry out an economic appraisal on the lough’s ownership.
Talkback is discussing the future of the lough now - should the environment agency be independent?
Read more: What does future hold for Lough Neagh?
Cooler weather means a clearer lake
Louise Cullen
BBC NI Agriculture & Environment Correspondent
What a difference a week or two and a bit of stormy weather can make - there’s just the faintest of remnants of blue-green algae perceptible on the shore of Lough Neagh at Battery Harbour.
With warmer settled weather expected this weekend, there is the possibility the blooms might resurge but winter will make a difference in the short-term.
'We treat our country as a place to extract from rather than live with'
James Orr of Friends of the Earth says we need a complete overhaul of our politics and our attitude towards the environment
“We treat our country as a place to extract from rather than live with,” he says.
“Our political pollution is reflected in the ecological pollution.”
James Orr says that we need to restore our belief that we can achieve something better something better, and says that Lough Neagh is a “symbol for all that”.
'Really scary'
Ciara Laverty is a Lough Neagh Ranger and every summer she surveys the breeding terns and gulls on the small islands in the lough.
“Every summer I’ve been out we’ve seen algal bloom but this year has just really tipped the scale,” she says.
She tells BBC Talkback that she is used to seeing “isolated pockets” of algae but that this year “it just seemed to be lough-wide”.
“That’s really scary,” she says.
Who is responsible?
Louise Cullen
BBC NI Agriculture & Environment Correspondent
We've been talking about the Earl of Shaftesbury, who owns the lough bed and soil, dating back to the 17th century Ulster Plantation.
But no single body owns the lough, its water or the water that flows in and out of it. The National Trust, councils, charities and Stormont departments all own areas around the lough.
As no one individual or body is responsible, many organisations and community groups have formed to try to protect it.
Read more: What does future hold for Lough Neagh?
'Absentee landlord'
John Barry, the academic speaking on Talkback now, says that the Earl of Shaftesbury, who owns the lough bed and shores, has been treating issues around either gifting or selling the lough as “a business case”.
“It’s that treatment of nature in terms of its instrumental value for humans,” he says.
Professor Barry says we are "are now still living with legacies of a medieval gifting of land to an absentee landlord".
BBC News NI has interviewed the Earl of Shaftesbury.
You can read an account of that interview here, where he says he would be open to selling the lough but would not give it away.
Eel fishing 'far from healthy'
Eel fishing "hit Ground Zero back in June" says fisherman Gerard McCourt.
He tells William Crawley on Talkback that Stormont bodies should have "taken measures" to stop the situation getting as bad as it has this year.
"How has it got to this stage? How have we not had people coming to help it before now?
"The lough has died before our eyes.
"It's results we need - not meetings about meetings."
'Low on the political agenda'
Talkback is live on the radio and guests are discussing who's to blame for the extent of the algal blooms at Lough Neagh.
John Barry, Professor of Green Political Economy at Queen's University Belfast says there has been a "political and regulatory failure" to deal with an issue that he says has been "rather low on the political agenda" for some time.
Kids wouldn't swim in the lough - but their grandparents did
Rebekah Wilson
Live page reporter at Lough Neagh
Fionn is 11 and said he wouldn’t swim in the water.
“I would go for a walk with my mum and dog but the water is really dirty - I wouldn’t swim in it at all.”
Jack, 10, says: “Our parents and grandparents would have been on the lough swimming but now it’s not okay - I wouldn’t go into the water.
"It's sad for us.”
Talkback's looking at the lough's past and future
Coming up at 12:00, Talkback will be taking a thoughtful look at the problems of blue-green algae.
They’ll be asking who’s responsible? Is it time for Northern Ireland to have an independent Environmental Agency? And what needs to be done urgently to save the Lough for future generations?
William Crawley will be joined by environmental experts, farmers, rangers and fishermen who spend their working lives on the water.
You can text the programme with your thoughts on 81771 or call in on 03030 80 55 55. And once the programme is on air, you can listen live by pressing the speaker button at the top of this page.
Watch: 'I'm open to selling lough but won't give it away'
Video content
The man who owns the bed and soil of the lake has sometimes been the focus of some people's ire over the state of Lough Neagh.
There have been calls for the Earl of Shaftesbury to be stripped of the ownership and for it to go into the hands of the public. It's been with his family for generations.
Now he's had his say. Speaking to BBC News NI's Tara Mills, he says many of the lough's problems are "completely outside my control".
He also says he's open to selling Lough Neagh but he has no intention of giving it away for nothing.
Archive footage shows concern about the lough goes back a lifetime
Back in 1984 - we feel the need to let you know that that's before the people running this live page were even born - untreated sewage was the main cause for environmental concern at Lough Neagh.
The angler spokesman talks about the "pea soup" effect that sometimes comes into play.
With thanks to our BBC News NI colleague Johnny for finding and tweeting this.
How do we fix the algae problem?
Louise Cullen
BBC NI Agriculture & Environment Correspondent
Colder, stormier weather and the darker days of autumn and winter are a natural weapon against the blue-green algae blooms that have been plaguing Lough Neagh.
But, the problem is likely to happen again as the seasons change. So what about a more permanent solution?
That's more complicated, as experts have been explaining to me. You can read more on fixing the algae problem here.
Potential solutions from across the pond
Niall McCracken
BBC News NI
"Half of the lake will be covered by an algae bloom in a bad year."
These are the words of one of the world's leading experts on blue-green algae - a type of bacteria that can grow in lakes and rivers.
You would be forgiven for assuming he was referring to Lough Neagh, given how much it has dominated local headlines on this issue in recent months.
But he isn't talking about the troubled freshwater lough in the centre of Northern Ireland.
Richard Stumpf - who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s harmful algal blooms research team - is referring to the toxic algae bloom that has plagued Lake Erie in North America for decades.
Now the debate about Northern Ireland's algae problem is shifting from how this happened, to what can be done about it.
Some academics and scientists here are looking across the Atlantic for potential solutions.
Full story here -https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66995187
Our live page reporter on the scene
Rebekah Wilson
Live page reporter at Lough Neagh
I’ve just arrived at my first stop today. Maghery is a small village that lies on the southwest shores of Lough Neagh.
It’s a cloudy day but the views are breath-taking and you can see from this point just how vast the lough is.
This small village used to welcome many tourists in the 70s that would have taken boat trips to places such as Coney Island which is about 1km away. The village has not seen such tourism in years which locals say is a result of poor management and advertising of Lough Neagh.
What's coming up today
Hi! If you're just joining us, we're spending the day focusing on Lough Neagh.
It's had a lot of attention this summer as cyanobacteria - what we tend to call blue-green algae - has been so prominent swimming has been banned, people have kept their animals away, and anglers have been told not to eat the fish they catch.
You probably know some of the headline stats already: it's the biggest freshwater lake in the UK and Ireland; it provides 40% of Northern Ireland's drinking water (check it it provides yours on our handy map); it borders five out of six of our counties; it's bigger than the Mediterranean island Malta.
But what can be done?
We've already heard that the owner of the lough bed and soil, the Earl of Shaftesbury, would be open to selling his rights - but not giving them away.
Throughout today well be examining the causes of and potential solutions to the algal problem. We'll be hearing from politicians, campaigners, business people and locals.
At 12:00, William Crawley will be joined by guests to discuss who is responsible for the problems at Lough Neagh on Talkback.
Then from 16:00, Evening Extra will bring our radio coverage to a close with a two-hour programme live from the lough.
On TV at 18:30, Newsline will explore the issues in-depth with special reports focusing on the future on the lough.
And our dedicated live page reporter Rebekah Wilson will be driving around the lough and reporting what she finds.