Irish Water urged to abandon pipe plan

　

IRISH Water has been urged to abandon its plan to extract water from the River Shannon to supply the Greater Dublin Area, and instead tap into the groundwater resources around the city to meet demand.

The call comes as it emerged last week that the company has conceded that the cost of the planned 170km pipeline project from the river at Parteen in North Tipperary to the capital is likely to exceed the €1.3 billion outlined in the National Development Plan.
Emma Kennedy, whose firm Kennedy Analysis has consistently been critical of the pipe project, said a key question for Irish Water to address is whether tapping into groundwater resources in the Greater Dublin Area was a better solution to meet projected demands in the capital and surround areas.
Ms Kennedy, who with her Nenagh-born husband, William, is the owner of Solsboro House off the Dark Road, described the pipe plan as "a bizarre project".
 

REVIEW BY COMMISSION

She said that, "happily", the pipe project was now in doubt as it was being reviewed by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU).
Ms Kennedy questioned the wisdom of proceeding with tapping into the Shannon to provide a supply, asserting that 99 per cent of Dublin's current water comes from rivers.
She said supplies sourced from rivers potentially contained microscopic parasites such as giardia and cryptosporidium, which caused illness in humans, particularly in the event of malfunction of treatment processes.
By proceeding with the pipe project Irish Water would be leaving Dublin - which currently draws heavily on the River Liffey - almost entirely exposed to rivers for its supply.
Ms Kennedy said Irish Water could learn for the policies adopted in cities such as London and Paris which used to heavily rely on the the Rivers Thames and Seine for their supplies.
But over the years as awareness has grown of the inherent risks of river water - especially if something goes wrong in the treatment process - the two cities moved to sourcing their supplies from a variety of different sources.
Ms Kennedy said London now gets around 30 per cent of its water from groundwater sources while Paris sourced around half of its supply from the same resource.
She said Irish Water now needed to look at adopting a similar policy for the Greater Dublin Area.
Ms Kennedy said the Geological Survey of Ireland had already pointed out in a submission that groundwater resources should be considered as an option for a supply source and that it had a number of advantages over surface water sources.
She asserted that 40 per cent of Dublin's supply could be met by tapping into groundwater resources.
Ms Kennedy added: "Irish Water has got to address this. Dublin's near total reliance on river water is not prudent, it is not necessary, it is not best international practice and it has got to be addressed."
 

PROJECT COSTS ARE SPIRALLING

Meanwhile, Liam Minihan of the Fight the Pipe group, which are opposed to the pipe project, told Tipp FM that news of the spiralling costs of the project did not surprise him.
"This started in 2011 with a cost of €750 million. In 2018 it went to €1.3 billion and no one in 2018 believed that the target was going to be met," said Mr Minihan, a farmer in Puckane.
He added: "This has all the evidence of being a runaway train and the worse part of it is it’s not necessary."
"Somebody just needs to wake up politically and say ‘lads come on we have a problem in Dublin, let's solve it.’ Don’t be going from one vulnerable source to another – fix the mistakes, fix the problems. Be imaginative," Mr Minihan said on the radio station.