{"id":2134,"date":"2023-06-14T12:49:57","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T11:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/government-must-immediately-respond-to-damning-epa-report-on-water-quality\/"},"modified":"2023-09-15T10:41:27","modified_gmt":"2023-09-15T09:41:27","slug":"government-must-immediately-respond-to-damning-epa-report-on-water-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/government-must-immediately-respond-to-damning-epa-report-on-water-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"Government must immediately respond to damning EPA report on water quality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Levels of polluting nitrogen and phosphorus in Irish rivers and lakes were found to be unacceptably high<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore has called for an immediate Government response to the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s bleak assessment of the condition of Irish watercourses.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Whitmore, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on climate action and biodiversity, said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe latest EPA report shows there was no significant improvement in the biological quality of our rivers and lakes last year. It found that levels of polluting nitrogen and phosphorus in Irish watercourses \u2013 resulting from human activities such as farming and forestry \u2013 were unacceptably high.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAny improvements identified in some areas were offset by declines elsewhere, according to the report, which called for action to be taken by Uisce \u00c9ireann and the agriculture sector.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe failure to reduce pollution levels will make it more difficult to achieve the EU and national goal of restoring our waters to good or better quality by 2027.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Minister must support and work with the agriculture sector to bring levels down &#8211; but we also need better enforcement and regulation to ensure that rules are being adhered to.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis Government likes to paint a rosy picture of its environmental track record. However, despite all the rhetoric and spin, the metrics tell a very different story.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>June 14, 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Levels of polluting nitrogen and phosphorus in Irish rivers and lakes were found to be unacceptably high Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore has called for an immediate Government response to the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s bleak assessment of the condition of Irish watercourses. Deputy Whitmore, who is the party\u2019s spokesperson on climate action and biodiversity, said: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[410,405,268,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agriculture","category-climate","category-jennifer-whitmore","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Government must immediately respond to damning EPA report on water quality - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/government-must-immediately-respond-to-damning-epa-report-on-water-quality\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Government must immediately respond to damning EPA report on water quality - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Levels of polluting nitrogen and phosphorus in Irish rivers and lakes were found to be unacceptably high Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore has called for an immediate Government response to the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s bleak assessment of the condition of Irish watercourses. 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