Residents shrug, visitors horrified, as Thurles river turns into an open sewer.
- LAWPRO scientists warn Suir is ‘dying rapidly’ while Tipperary Council fails to act.
- Twelve years of neglect and denial leave one of Ireland’s great rivers in crisis.
- Officials accused of hiding 28 sewage outlets behind unchecked weed growth.
Yesterday afternoon, as a heavy downpour swept across Thurles Town, I took shelter beneath the trees on the banks of the River Suir and waited. As predicted at 3:00pm, as the bells from Thurles Cathedral struck the hour, the rain eased just long enough for me to capture a series of photographs and a short video, the evidence of which, now speaks for itself.
Video above shows sewage flowing openly in the River Suir, in Thurles Town centre.
The Fountain, once gifted to the Thurles Tidy Town Committee and stolen from the river Suir by council officials, with the knowledge of current serving local councillors, must now be returned.
What the footage show above is undeniable: Tipperary County Council officials, aided by Thurles Municipal District officials and supported by local councillors, are not only failing in their duty to protect the River Suir; they are directly contributing to its pollution and decline.
The reason the rampant weed growth along the riverbank is left uncontrolled is now obvious. These weeds serve as a natural curtain, concealing the 28 outlets discharging their contents directly into the river; a river which LAWPRO (Local Authority Waters Programme) scientists confirm is dying rapidly.
Yes, in response to an EPA memo last week, Council officials, who had deliberately ignored our warnings, made a token gesture. Two pallets, two plastic bollards, a pile of discarded clothing, and six supermarket trolleys were finally removed. But beyond that, little has changed. As my video above shows, bottles dumped into the river during this summer’s Town Park Music Festival still remain. The blame here cannot rest entirely with festival-goers; when public seating is installed by a river, litter bins must also be provided. Yet councillors and their officials continue to ignore this most basic of facts.
I spent over an hour yesterday in that putrid stretch of riverbank, speaking with those passing along the walkway near the Swinging Gates at the junction of Emmett Street and Thomond Road. After the downpour, one covered drain was spewing raw sewage; another carried foul runoff from the southern end of town. Spanish students and Ukrainian refugees were horrified by what they saw. Local residents, on the other hand, merely shrugged, “nothing new,” they said.
Even the ducks, same introduced years ago by the late Wilbert Houben, Thurles Gun Club and myself, paddled eagerly in the filth, feeding on its floating debris.
Meanwhile, on 11th September, (a full 13 days after I had contacted the EPA in Wexford), our local newspaper finally ran a piece on the issue. Disappointingly, the image used was a long outdated archive photo, showing a river that looked nothing like its current choked and dying state. The article itself read more like a promotion for a local politician, than an exposé of the environmental crisis being ignored for the past 12 years.
And so, the buck-passing continues. LAWPRO; Uisce Éireann; Inland Fisheries Ireland, etc. none are willing or able to take legal action against Tipperary County Council. Instead, information shuffles endlessly from one desk to another, while the river suffers in silence and our government runs around like a headless chicken, believing, like the two genetically enhanced mice, ‘Pinkey and the Brain’, that their hyper-intelligence is slowly taking over the world.
But let it be clear: as the video shows, this is ‘Not The End’.
THE RIVER IS VERY BAD NOW