Up to 1,171 farmers risk incurring a €5,000 penalty for failing to sign up to an Environment Protection Agency (EPA) water register.
Farmers using over 25,000 litres of water per day must sign up to the online register or risk the once-off penalty, but according to the EPA not a single farmer has signed up to the register to date.
These farmers have to sign the register before the 16 November deadline. After the deadline, all new abstractions exceeding 25,000 litres per day will need to register within one month of starting.
During the drought earlier this year many farmers were depending on water abstractions from local rivers to supply water to thirsty livestock or to irrigate their parched crops.
After all a milking dairy cow drinks about 30 to 50 gallons of water each day. During periods of heat stress water intake may double so for the typical 80 cow herd a farmer could need up to 60.000 gallons of water for a week’s supply.
As regards potatoes during the months of July and August the crop requires 3½ mm of water per acre every 24 hours and that is a lot of water if there is no rainfall during this period. Modern potato varieties are sensitive to soil water deficits and need frequent, shallow irrigation.
A 120 to 150 day potato crop consumes from 500 to 700 mm of water, and depletion of more than 50 percent of the total available soil water during the growing period results in lower yields. 27,154 gallons (102789 litres) of water will cover one acre, one inch deep. Discounting runoff and evaporation, this is considered an average weekly requirement to maintain soil moisture.
The register is part of a tightening of restrictions around farm water usage, with legislation being worked on by the Dept. of Housing as part of the River Basin and Management Plan announced earlier this year which included an increased focus on farm water inspections.
Local authorities have also availed of existing rules to crack down on pesticide and fertiliser use within a 250-metre zone of water abstraction points on farmland under nitrates regulations.
While affected farmers accept that protecting water is in the public interest, they point out that this limits their land use and decreases the value of farmland.
According to the IFA environment chair Thomas Cooney “over the years, farmers have allowed wells to be drilled on their lands to provide their neighbours with a water supply, which over time has been taken over by local authorities and now Irish Water.”
However the bottom line is that framers who need water for their livestock and crops will simply have to register with the EPA for water abstraction licences.
Dealers can expect many more farmers to invest in an improved water supply infra structure for 2019, to purchase tanks for rainwater harvesting, to buy irrigation equipment, solar water pumps, miles of water piping, bigger water troughs etc.
