What Lies Beneath

Date Published: 12-Aug-2008

A PHOTOGRAPHIC survey of the bed of the city’s canals has revealed a toxic wasteland littered with thousands of cans, bottles, bicycles, shopping trolleys and even a lawnmower.

The alarming insight as to what lies beneath was provided by water sports photographer Benoit Queguineur, who discovered a murky world polluted by items such as mobile phones, trailers, electrical appliances and traffic cones.

“The survey included the Eglinton Canal, the waterway going through ‘the Bish’ secondary school, past the Garda station at Mill Street, near the Róisín Dubh and down to the Claddagh Basin,” explained Mr Queguineur.

“It was all very bad, even in areas that you wouldn’t expect to be bad because there is basically no access. The worst example I saw was probably the lawnmower, which is near Presentation Road at the crossing of the two waterways,” he said.

Under the EU Water Framework Directive, Ireland face prosecution by the European Commission if they fail to comply with standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) vis á vis the condition of the country’s waterways by 2015.

Mr Queguineur contacted the EPA following the photographicsurvey but was told that it was the responsibility of Galway…