Pond weed could wipe out Lough Corrib in ten years

Date Published: 30-Jun-2010

A highly-invasive pond weed on Lough Corrib is posing a major flooding risk and a threat to boating and salmon fishing in the region, a meeting of Galway County Council has been told.

Councillors were warned by experts that unless ongoing funding is provided to fight African Pond Weed (‘Lagarosiphon major’), the lake will be overgrown, unnavigable and unmanageable within ten years.

At the moment, the fight against the weed is costing around €200,000 per annum, which is being funded by the Western Regional Fisheries Board, the County Council and the Heritage Council, although there is a shortfall of more than €70,000 this year.

Dr Joe Caffrey, Senior Research Officer with the Central Fisheries Board told the meeting that the weed – also known as ‘curly weed’ or ‘oxygen weed’ – has been researched in Ireland since 2005, and that it only exists on the Corrib.

He explained that it is highly-invasive and also favours the spread of zebra mussels, which have already infested the lake.

Dr Caffrey cited the example of Rinneroon Bay in Oughterard, where there were an estimated 1,640 tonnes of the weed in 2005 had jumped to 2,700 tonnes in 2007.

Read full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.