Monaghan – Learning from Group Water Schemes

Qualities of Water

watersite — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 09:45:14 +0000

In early 2019, twenty-three people living in Monaghan, Roscommon, and Mayo were invited to take photos with disposable cameras in response to the prompt: ‘what affects the quality of water where you live and work?’ The prompt was deliberately open-ended, and participants were encouraged to respond however they wanted. After the photos were developed, the participants were given the opportunity to talk about them and explain why and how they relate to the theme of water quality. The quotes that accompany the photos are taken from these interviews. The booklet below was designed to accompany the public exhibitions of selected photos.

Co. Monaghan 15.03.2019

watersite — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 15:57:03 +0000

In March, we visited Monaghan to continue doing interviews for our community photography project. While we were there, we visited the Ballybay Wetlands Centre and took note of the extremely high water levels that had followed recent rains. Many of the fences that divide fields from the water body by the wetland centre, were underwater, illustrating a point many have made to us about the insufficiencies of fencing depending on the time of the year and weather patterns. This can pose acute problems for water management, as for instance when the town’s wastewater treatment facility is flooded, or when fields covered in nutrients are submerged by overflowing rivers.

Co. Monaghan 20.02.2019

watersite — Tue, 05 Mar 2019 11:14:26 +0000

In February, we drove to Monaghan to conduct interviews for our community photography project. We were trying out new research methods, autophotography and photo elicitation, with the help of the Stranooden GWS, to try to get at different understandings, connections to, and concerns about water in the area. We distributed disposable cameras to community members with a prompt, what effects the quality of the water where you live and work? and gave participants two weeks to take photos. We then had the photos developed and sat with participants for interviews about the photos a few weeks later.

We had thought this method would offer a compliment to all the photos we have taken throughout our fieldwork, but what we received was much more. The photos themselves were remarkable — they offered us new ways of viewing waterscapes and drew our attention to issues that exceeded bodies of water. Photos of negative and positive pressures on water quality were taken inside homes, by the side of the road, and on walking paths, and indicated to us that there were much more complicated stories behind the photos. In interviewing participants, we began to get a sense of the motivations behind why the photos were taken and what they were meant to express. And while many were about the physical quality of the water, the motivation behind others was to express an aspiration for how individuals and communities can come to know, care, and connect to their water sources.

Since using this method in Monaghan, we have extended it to other field sites in Roscommon and Mayo. It has added not only texture and context to our findings but has rebalanced how our work privileges visual forms of knowing and whose eyes we value.

Co. Monaghan 18.12.2018

watersite — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 16:55:54 +0000

During a recent interview at Monaghan County Council, we heard about how the county oversees group water schemes, about their involvement in catchment projects over the last several years, and about the different land-uses in the county. We learned about the importance of differentiating multiple land-uses, particularly different agricultural practices, when talking about rural Ireland. Poultry is a dominant agricultural sector in Monaghan unlike in Mayo and Roscommon. This interview offered us a chance to learn about the nuances of how the poultry industry operates – that are different from beef and dairy – that shape the ways that it can impact water supplies.

We also heard about a pilot scheme that the county had been involved in to help farmers develop nutrient management plans when they were not covered by other agricultural schemes. Interesting to us, this projects happened in the valley where we were staying on a local farm. Nutrient management has implications for the impacts that farming practices have on waterways, and while agricultural schemes are seen by many as a way to help farmers implement better management strategies by providing them funds, plans and other support, farmers are not always able to avail of the schemes.

Co. Monaghan 19.12.2018

watersite — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 16:25:18 +0000

Our trip to Co. Monaghan took us back to the Stranooden GWS offices where we learned a detailed history of the scheme, the pressures it has faced, and the infrastructural and environmental challenges that may lie in its future. As we learn histories of different GWSs through our research, we have heard several times about the caring approach that GWSs take when navigating their role in the community. In Stranooden, we learned of different ways that the GWS adapts to the challenges its members face, be they personal or financial, by easing the burden water bills may place on individuals and families. In learning these histories, what also becomes clearer is the reasons why GWS become involved in source protection pilots. GWSs are responsible for meeting not only EU and Irish regulations but also the usage demands of their local community now and into the future. In pursuing source water protection, GWSs navigate histories of infrastructural investment and land-use, present regulatory and consumer demands, and future regulatory changes, land-use, and levels of development.

Co. Monaghan 28.11.2018

watersite — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 15:06:28 +0000

In late November, we went to the operational advisory group meeting for the source water pilot project getting underway in Co. Monaghan with the Stranooden GWS. The meeting, held at the Ballybay Wetland Centre, was an opportunity for us to learn more about the goals and objectives of the project, hears its aims across the short and long-term, and meet with a wide variety of stakeholders who are helping shape how the project develops.

Co. Monaghan 19.10.2018

watersite — Fri, 30 Nov 2018 08:06:16 +0000

On our second visit to Co. Monaghan in October, we met with Patrick McCabe, who works on the Dromore River Catchment Source Protection Pilot. Patrick began by showing us the Stranooden Group Water Scheme water treatment facility, which is operated remotely by Veolia and overseen locally by the GWS manager. He then took us on a tour of the catchment, including the main water bodies and courses, and sites of potential contamination. In addition to his professional expertise in the earth sciences (including a Masters in paleo limnology), Patrick is a local history buff, and also showed us a building used as a soup kitchen during Irish Famine, as well as a plaque honouring the inventor of the Gregg shorthand, Sir John Robert Gregg.

Co. Monaghan 10.10.2018

watersite — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 12:49:55 +0000

In early October we visited Co. Monaghan to meet with representatives from the Local Authority Waters Programme (LAWPRO). After our interview, we explored some of the county, visiting the Ballymun Wetland Centre, the Stranooden Group Water Scheme treatment facility, an interlocutor with the National Federation of Group Water Schemes (NFGWS), and the site of a recent landslide. We are learning to read the landscape in new and different ways, to see things that might impact water quality and pose challenges to source protection.

Co. Monaghan 10.07.2018

watersite — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 13:28:21 +0000

On a beautiful day in July, the National Federation of Group Water Schemes (NFGWS) showed us around parts of Co. Monaghan and took us to visit two Group Water Schemes (GWSs). We spent the day traveling to abstraction points, metering stations, boreholes, and GWSs offices that were nestled in between rolling hills, poultry houses, and grazing cows. Along the way, we tried to make sense of the complexities hidden and visible in these landscapes. Pipes, meters, treatment plants, farms, and memorials to the troubles were physical reminders of social, political, and economic processes that have unfolded in the area over the last half-century.

As we were guided through these landscapes, we learned of the area’s history with national and EU agricultural policy, the pressures they place on water quality in catchment areas, and how GWSs have responded. We heard about the social and political of the history of the region and its memories of violence during the troubles. We saw the networks of infrastructures and activities that GWSs have developed to respond to poor water quality, EU and Irish water regulation, and operational demands through monitoring and metering.