Farmers concerned about aftermath of flooded farms

Brian Donaldson • Published 3 Dec 2009 09:00 0 Comments

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The floods around Upper Lough Erne have been described as the worst in over 50 years and the best people to verify that are the many farmers who rely on their livelihood on the shores of the lake.

As the levels continued to reach their highest levels last Thursday, the Ulster Farmers' Union President, Graham Furey, travelled out to meet some of the farmers affected, many of them members of the organisation.

Mr. Furey has had to do this several times in the course of his Presidency, with floods in other parts of the Province also badly affecting farmers.

A delegation from the UFU including the President and Joe McDonald, Director of Communications along with the Fermanagh County Chairman; Derek Thornton and the Chairman of the South-East Group, Andy Wilson, travelled first to Ross Road, to hear the plight of landowners and residents in the townlands of Drumany and Rossmacaffrey and then on to the townland of Killynamph and on to the Newtownbutler area.

One of the farmers, Henry Mayne from Killynamph said he and his father, John who is now 82, had been farming in that area for over 50 years and conditions had never been so bad.

"He(John) had never seen anything like it before. He's shocked by it," he explained to me as he surveyed 50 acres of his farm lying under four or five feet of water. His land lies adjacent to the Lough Head, just off the Derrylin Road, outside Lisnaskea.

This is prime farming land and Henry said some of his most productive silage fields were now under water. A new stock fence up to five feet high erected just about six weeks ago, was submerged apart from the top few inches of the fence posts.

For Henry, a dairy farmer, this was a further blow this year which has been catastrophic, first the low milk prices and then the poor summer weather which necessitated him bringing his stock indoors from the end of July for several weeks.

"I made 80 bales of silage in June and they were used by the end of September," he said. Luckily, the good September weather enabled Henry and other farmers to replenish their winter fodder supplies which were at dangerously low levels by the end of the summer.

Of course as landowners wait for the floods to subside, the worry was about the after effects. It has been the experience of many farmers that grass is "soured" by dirty flood water and it can also have a devastating affect on drainage systems, filling them with silt. Then there is the rubbish that is carried and left behind.

The UFU President, Graham Furey, said extreme flooding incidences such as this one in Fermanagh was becoming more common across the country.

"It's important to know that everything is being done when it can when we get a prolonged rainfall event," he said.

He said they had to look at the implications of run off from roofs and concrete areas.

The situation was particularly serious at Drumany and Rossmacaffrey where several families have moved out of their homes because the road access has been blocked in two places by high water.

Dairy farmer, Jack McVitty has resorted to pumping his milk into his slurry tank because milk tankers cannot access the farm.

On Thursday last, the Rivers Agency were examining the conditions on the road which was flooded in two places - by boat, such was the depth of the water.

One of the residents in the area, Ken Neely said all they were looking for was for the road to be raised to avoid a repeat of this. He and other residents were angered that the Roads Service put in a new road on the approach to Erneside Shopping Centre and the Asda store, even though they contributed to the cost. He wondered which was more important, people's homes or shopping. He said they paid their rates just like everyone else.

Also surveying the conditions was Mr. David Porter, of the Rivers Agency who explained to all those gathered the sequence of events during recent weeks.

He explained how during the second week of October, the level of the Erne was as low as it could be. That was during a fine spell of weather throughout most of September and into October. He said if the weather had been as wet then as it was in recent weeks, the lake level would have been three to four feet higher than the record 158 feet above sea level recorded last week.

He said maximum spillage at Ballyshannon was in the region of 300 cubic metres of water per second but they had actually recorded higher figures of 365 cubic metres per second as the pressure of water forced it through quicker.

He also explained how the Erne system had a 4,000 square kilometre catchment including Monaghan and Cavan which has had extremely wet weather. Fermanagh itself has only 1400 square kilometres and is the smallest area within the catchment. Four times more water was entering the system than was leaving it. One of the problems, he suggested was the six mile long Belleek channel, an engineered channel which was "holding back" water at Roscor. He also said there was no single day's rainfall which had caused the problems, but the accumulative effect of 35 days rain, totalling 300mm or three months rainfall falling in one month.

Andy Wilson suggested to Mr. Porter that once the situation returns to normal, representatives from the various agencies including the Rivers Agency, Met Office, ESB and farmers meet to look at 10-day forecasts of similar events happening again.

At the tme of going to Press, the levels of floodwater had began to recede but it is estimated to take many more days for Upper Lough Erne to reach normal winter levels.

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 03 Dec 09

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