Fury over boil water notices
Call for councils to operate wastewater treatment plants
Just over a year after Uisce Éireann heralded the €7 million upgrade and completion of the Newport Wastewater Treatment Plant as a brighter future for Newport, Ballina and surrounding communities residents continue to face repeated boil water notices.
Since the upgrade, customers served by the Newport plant have received numerous boil water notices, including one lasting 43 consecutive days from May 20, this year. The latest notice was issued last Saturday, October 24.
The River Shannon Environmental Protection Alliance (RSEPA) said the situation reflects a wider national problem. Customers are forced to buy bottled water and also bear the added cost of boiling water for daily use.
“We are a first world country and yet we do not have the basic commodity of potable drinking water,” said Kay Mullane of RSEPA. “This crisis highlights the serious accountability deficit at Uisce Éireann. Anywhere else in the world, management would have been held to account by Government. Instead Uisce Éireann has become a monopolistic organisation and government has lost control of it.” A recent RSEPA review of the latest Annual Environmental Reports (AERs) identified 15 wastewater treatment plants between Mullingar and the Parteen Basin discharging into the Parteen Basin, that were reported as non-compliant. The Parteen Basin is where the proposed abstraction of 330 million litres for the Shannon water to Dublin will originate. These 15 plants include the plant at Ballina. The RSEPA is now calling on the government to to instruct Uisce Éireann to publish the current compliance status of the Ballina Plant.
RSEPA also questioned Uisce Éireann’s suitability to deliver the proposed Shannon Single Pipeline Project estimated to cost €10.4 billion. “Other countries oppose reliance on large single schemes. Given Uisce Éireann’s dismal record in managing and maintaining wastewater treatment plants to the required standards why would the construction and maintenance of a 172km length pipeline be any different?” Ms Mullane asked.
RSEPA said the replacement of 31 local authorities as the country ‘s water utility with Uisce Éireann has failed. The group supports Tipperary County Council’s call to the Department of Local Government to return responsibility for operating and maintaining wastewater treatment plants to county councils with appropriate funding and staffing.