Council hosting WaterPro conference in Donegal this week

 

Delegates from Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Faroe Islands and Northern Ireland will attend an international conference in Letterkenny on Wednesday this week looking at bioremediation to manage runoff from agriculture, mining and landfills.
The conference, which is being hosted by Donegal County Council, is part of an innovative EU funded project called WaterPro which aims to develop sustainable systems to protect water quality from agricultural and mining pollution.
One of the key highlights of the conference is a site visit to Churchtown Landfill site in Lifford which has been restored and uses a combination of an irrigated willow plantation and integrated constructed wetlands to treat leachate before it enters the River Finn.
The River Finn is one of Europe’s best salmon and sea trout rivers and Donegal County Council says that it is committed to protecting the resource by ensuring that all leachate is treated effectively.
The Council has introduced a plant based leachate treatment system at Churchtown and as part of the WaterPro project, the Council will, in close consultation with the EPA, analyse the results from these bioremediation processes with a view to ensuring that similar systems can be replicated elsewhere.
The visiting delegates will attend their own project management meeting tomorrow in Inishowen and this will be followed by a visit to Ireland’s most northerly point at Malin Head.