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Thursday, 10 June 2010

Stark reminders of environmental destruction don't come more persuasive than the dried up river bed that lies beneath the bridge in Kilkeel town centre.
If it wasn't for the courage and insight of one dedicated individual, Dr Arthur Mitchell and a handful of local people who took on government officials in the mid 1970's and won, every major river in the Mourne's would resemble that of the dried up Kilkeel River in the harbour town.
The tail spin from Rachel Carson's critically acclaimed 'Silent Spring' had made its way to the sleepy hills of South East Ulster through the voice of this local GP and before long, he established a group of fairly switched on professionals to tackle some environmentally pressing issues of their own.
It's almost forty years since Arthur first realised that man was on a collision course with nature. Locally, that began to show itself through the imminent scourge that threatened to befall the fertile valley's of the Mourne area if large factory owners based in the greater Belfast Area, had got their way.
Arthur's story began, as most good stories do, at a dance. It was 1960 and Coleraine born Arthur Mitchell (Now living in Downpatrick), was in his first year at Queen's University studying medicine. He recalls it's all he ever wanted to become. His father had taught him hunting and fishing from an early age and they lived very self sufficiently. He recalls too, learning that the essential elements for good health were good food, clean air and water, and that nature is inextricably linked with such wellbeing.
That Halloween, he found himself chatting up another fellow doctor at the 'Halloween Hop'. Having an ear for accents, and fancying himself as a Henry Higgins type character, from My Fair Lady, he told the young Wilma Hanna, after hearing a few words that she was from Kilkeel.
Sure enough Wilma was so impressed, that when he qualified, they were married. Wilma's father had been a GP in Kilkeel and after a few years, the couple moved there with their young son and Arthur joined the practice in 1966. He loved it instantly. He much preferred the diversity of the family practice compared to the fast turnaround of a general hospital. He found himself treating conditions from ingrown toenails to acute coronary thrombosis, with a few 'heart sink' patients for good measure.
The latter, Arthur explains with a laugh: "Are the patients who haunt the practice and your heart sinks when they visit." "But", said Arthur: "I always wanted to see them, because I always viewed my glass was half full. I'm an eternal optimist and would always believe that maybe this time I might discover what it was that bothered them."
He was also quite taken by the beauty of the Mourne's, explaining to me the landscape was much softer than his native Coleraine where he had been brought up. At the time, he sailed through life believing that we had government department's looking after this valuable resource. "However, one day in 1975," he continued. "Somebody came to me and said plans were afoot to pump the Whitewater River, which ran along the foothills in Ballyardle, into the Silent valley in order to supply Belfast. I thought to myself what would happen to the abundant wildlife that flocked to the river and that stopped me in my tracks.
“The river provided a good salmon and sea trout run, which essentially need the same quality of water as we do, to survive. When I looked around the Kilkeel River was gone. It had already been dammed in the Silent Valley. The Annalong River, was diverted through the Binnian Tunnel into the Silent Valley. As a doctor, you are also a scientist, because you are always exploring the mind and body. We begin to develop patterns of thought, and this makes you investigative.
“I decided to find out exactly what was going on. I didn't agree with what I uncovered, so we set up a small think tank of professionals. We called ourselves Whitewater River Environmental Conservationists Kilkeel(WRECK). We began to write searching letters to government departments and we gathered details of the bigger picture. Questions like, why they needed the extra water. We discovered the water was needed to help sustain the new artificial fabric factories which were springing up all around Belfast and needed phenomenal amounts of water for their processes.
“I was amazed. The water wasn't even for the people, it was for commercial profit. Then I couldn't help wonder that there was supposed to be a governmental department looking after this. We also discovered they were about to put a sewage works on the river, in other words they were going to take most of the water out and replace it with sewage. When we found out the department hadn't even been aware that these two schemes were in operation simultaneously. If I did this to a patient, I'd kill them and they were certainly going to kill this river!"
“I reached a seminal moment in my life were I realised that I couldn't trust the government to manage our environment properly. However, we managed through confronting them, to put them off. I suppose if you think about it, the claims made by the American biologist Rachel Carson on the environment, began to happen to me, on my own doorstep. What were we actually doing here?
“The government was under pressure to provide water. They wanted the Mourne water because it was so pure that it was the least treated water in Northern Ireland and therefore it was the cheapest water, and it ran by gravity all the way to Belfast. They wouldn't need to pump it. All these facts astounded me and the government soon relented.
“About six years later we heard they were going to build Kinahala Dam, below the Spelga Dam. The government proposed that it would be a huge dam and it would pump the Trassey River, The Rocky River, The Shimna River and the Yellow River, basically every river on the northern face of the Mournes, all into this dam. Then I thought, what have we done? We may have chased them out of here, but they are about to do something much much worse. They were going to rape the natural water resources of this area.
“Within a short while we had forced the government into a public enquiry in Newcastle. Their team had a QC, a junior QC, about five or six supporting solicitors and other expert witnesses. We formed another think tank organisation called Kingdom of Mourne Revolt Against Destruction of the Environment (KOMRADE). Through sponsored walks and book sales the community helped us raise over £11,000. That was thirty years ago. It was a whopping amount and a reflection of the level of support we received.
“We were then able to employ a QC, a Junior QC and up to five to six supporting solicitors of our own. Desmond Boal, was our leading QC and he was also a regular rambler of the Mournes. The government was so confident they would win, they had already begun work on the dam, making approach roads and erecting markers. The scheme was costing the government £21 million. They needed enough water to justify this expenditure, that is to say for £21 million they estimated a certain number of gallons of water per hour. One of our members was a geologist from Queens and an expert hydrologist, Mr Robert Common, and he looked at all the rivers that would be effected and estimated the amount of water our rivers were producing.
“He found the amount of water they produced was much less than the government was claiming. So to make it cost effective the people contracted by the government to carry out these estimations had 'apparently enhanced the figures'. At that point in the public hearing our group walked out in protest. Six weeks later the commissioner ruled in our favour. That was the first time in the history of Northern Ireland that a government department had ever been defeated in a public enquiry."
With an enormous smile that conveyed just how proud he felt recalling the events of his struggle with adversity, Arthur added: "From that time on people began to take the environment seriously.
Soon after the Mourne Advisory Council was formed. It was completely voluntary but was supported by the local councils and the Department formed the Council for Nature Conservation and Countryside which had a specific "Mourne" subcommittee of which Arthur was the chairman and that eventually led to the Mourne Heritage Trust, still in existence today. The upshot for the government however was that they learned how vulnerable they really were and invited Arthur to represent them on the management board of the Trust.
Arthur is a published writer of stories and poetry about Mourne. He may have retired from medicine in 2001 but he is still very much at work on behalf of the communities of Mourne and indeed of Northern Ireland. He sits on the boards of six Charitable Companies and is Chairman of four of them
40 years on the mention of name Dr Arthur Mitchell may not part seas, but his story is probably the most inspirational story I have heard about in quite some time, and hopefully one the Mourne area will never forget.

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