Councils urged to seek funding for River Blackwater clean-up

LOCAL councils located along the length of the River Blackwater have been urged by the Minister for Infrastructure to seek funding in order to help open up the mouth of the river which has been blocked by debris over recent months.

People who use the river on a regular basis for fishing or pleasure cruises recently staged a clean-up in a bid to make it more accessible. But now John O’Dowd has called for a more comprehensive approach to deal with the issue.

He was speaking following a question from Mid-Ulster MLA Keith Buchanan. The DUP politician said the Blackwater was being affected by two separate issues – dredging and navigation.

“I appreciate that the River Blackwater does not cause flooding directly but (it) floods farmland, which is understandable. There is an issue with navigation and one of your officials mentioned a week ago that the Rivers Agency is concerned with flooding and not necessarily navigation,” Mr Buchanan said.

Minister O’Dowd said that he was ‘very familiar’ with the issues on the River Blackwater. He added that the problems had been exacerberated by the cutting down of a considerable number of trees along the river and allowing them to flow down towards the mouth of the Bann.

He added that this caused huge disruption and damage to the environment as well as disruption for local people who are involved in the fishing industry and those who operate pleasure cruises on the lough.

“We have responsibility for a number of channels into Lough Neagh and for small ports or harbours for fishing boats but not on the River Blackwater,” he added.

“We need to be imaginative. I have funding available to me under the blue-green fund. I cannot predict the outcome of an application, but if an application came in to open up the mouth of the River Blackwater, it would certainly meet the main criteria. Then, it would have to be assessed against all the other criteria.

“I know that councils have concerns about who has responsibility for dumping the materials that are dredged out of the river basin, including how much it costs and who has the licence to move the materials.”