Lilliput water quality ‘was excellent’ through summer

Farmers and other stakeholders have been praised by the council following the news that the bathing water quality at Lilliput has consistently been rated “excellent” throughout this summer bathing season.

The council is statutorily obligated to test the water in the three local designated bathing areas of Lilliput at Lough Ennell, Portnashangan at Lough Owel and The Cut at Lough Lene fortnightly during the bathing season, which runs from June 1 to September 15.

This season, however, the council tested the water in Lough Ennell on a weekly basis after the quality at the popular recreation amenity was rated poor by the EPA for the third successive year.

This is the first summer since 2017 that there were no incidents of elevated levels of E.Coli/Intestinal Enterococci found in the water. Despite the results of the weekly water quality tests this summer, due to Lilliput’s ‘poor’ bathing quality rating in the EPA’s annual report for 2020, the council was obliged to issue a season long ‘Advice Not To Swim’ notice to discourage bathers.

Samples tested each week

Speaking at last Friday’s virtual meeting of the council’s Strategic Policy Committee on Environment, Climate Action, Water and Emergency Services, senior engineer Jonathan Deane paid tribute to the different stakeholders who engaged with the council in a bid to improve the water quality at the lake this year.

“We sampled it 16 times, which is every week, and it has been excellent on every occasion. We feel that this is a positive sign that the work we have been doing with stakeholders in the area has led to a significant improvement in the water. We’d like to thank all the involvement we have had, from local farmers to the local community, from the trout angling society to people who run the tourism groups – everyone has engaged with us and we are very pleased with the results we’ve had this year.”

However, despite the improvement in water quality this summer, Mr Deane told the SPC members that the council will have to issue an all season ‘Advice Not To Swim’ notice for Lilliput next summer too. He explained that this is because the E.Coli numbers were “off the scale” in 2018 and the water quality ratings are based on results over the previous four years.

If the water quality results are positive during next summer’s bathing season, Mr Deane says that the ‘no bathing’ notice will be lifted.

The water quality at Portnashangan and The Cut was rated excellent throughout the summer. However, no swim notices were issued at The Cut for short periods in July and August due to Algal Bloom incidents.