Concern over Lough Owel water levels
Water levels at Lough Owel will continue to reduce over the summer as Uisce Éireann’s Water Conservation Order attempts to address the issue.
The order for the Mullingar Regional Public Water Supply came into effect on Tuesday May 6 for a period of six weeks. The need for the action is visible to anyone who has observed the low level of the water.
Normally the lake has a maximum depth of 21 metres and covers an area of 2,547 acres, but low rainfall levels means more shore line is visible than usual.
Lough Owel is primarily a spring-fed limestone lake, which gives it a remarkable water quality and high visibility of more than six metres on a bright day. Its few tributaries, all of which are small, is a reason for the current low levels.
The lake has a resident stock of wild brown trout, with an average weight of about 2lbs, but there’s a lot more to the habitat than fish.
Stanley McKeon of the Lough Owel Preservation Society explained: “When the volume of the lake reduces, it will affect the temperature. The fish are dependent on the temperature, as well as the invertebrates, like the insects that live in the lake. They lose a certain amount of land, the bottom area, to breed and hatch and so on.”
The society has a long history of oversight of the lake, having started out as The Fishery Preservation Society of Loughs Derravaragh, Owel and Ennell, in 1885.
Addressing the low levels is no easy fix: “We’re approaching the summer, you would expect this would be the situation at the end of the summer. If we get dry periods during July and August, the lake will continue falling.
“There’s millions of gallons of water going out of the lake every day. It’s supplying north to Rathowen, south to Kilbeggan, Ballymore, Kinnegad, the whole county is being supplied from Lough Owel.”
David O’Malley is an avid fisherman. He says the drop in levels is a cause for concern: “It has an effect on everything there. There’s the fish and stocks, there’s the flora and fauna as well. The white-tailed crayfish is a protected species.”
He says the May level of the water body is unusual: “It’s about a metre below normal. I don’t think it’s ever hit it before. Particularly this time of the year, normally it comes back up during the winter time.
“Loch Ennell has plenty of water in it, but Loch Owel doesn’t seem to have bounced back this year. It’s just a lack of rainfall,” he said.
David believes the level may present a danger to crafts: “It’s not really affecting people going fishing, other than they have to be a lot more careful where they’re going. With the lake levels having dropped, there’s some stones and rocks where they would normally be well over them, they’re now maybe hitting off them.”
The public can help by observing the Conservation Order prohibiting the use of garden hose pipes and other non-essential uses of water by domestic users and commercial premises for non-commercial activities.