City and North County face Water rationing from June

Sponge Bob

Todays Irish Times has this piece (sub required)

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2007/0507/1178204568784.html

It seems Tuam cannot supply enough water to replace the plant thats being taken out of service for an upgrade.

Therefore there will be "rationing" in Galway/Oranmore/Tuam and Athenry starting next month. In order to effectively ration some cutoffs will possibly be required along with universal hosepipe bans and car wash bans and the like .

I hear Headford has sourced water from Caherlistrane or somewhere like that and will be OK.

Steyr

Who cares? The water was ****e in the first place before this mess happened.

3greenrizla's

can you copy & paste the article please.

kraggy

Steyr wrote:

Who cares? The water was ****e in the first place before this mess happened.

So you won't mind not showering for the next year if the worst case scenario occured?

Steyr

kraggy wrote:

So you won't mind not showering for the next year if the worst case scenario occured?

Obviously but im on about for consumption.

snubbleste

Galway city and county may face water rationing as the public health alert over water contamination approaches its second month.

City manager Joe McGrath has said in a newsletter to residents of the city that water conservation measures will be required to "assure continuity of supply over the busy summer period".

Rationing is being considered among a "series of conservation measures", city council director of services Ciarán Hayes confirmed yesterday.

He added that demand on public supplies had not dropped significantly since the alert over the cryptosporidium parasite was issued to some 90,000 residents in the city and county on March 15th.

This sustained demand may be due to the current dry weather spell, and city officials have no figures as yet for the sale of subsidised bottled water. More than 100 people who attended a march on the issue in Galway city at the weekend called for free supplies to all residents.

City officials have said that they are working with organisations involved with vulnerable groups such as the elderly to provide clean, safe water. Mr Hayes said the council was examining measures including reducing pressure at night and leak eradication to reduce dependence on the old Terryland waterworks, which supplies some 14,000 cubic metres of water a day.

Replacement supplies are being taken in from the Tuam regional system via the water treatment plant at Luimnagh in the north of the county, at a rate of 2,000 cubic metres a day, and it is hoped to have this additional supply up to 17,000 cubic metres by June 15th.

This would enable the old Terryland works, where cryptosporidium contamination was detected in late March, to be taken out of commission.

Galway County Council hopes to introduce coagulation and flocculation to provide "further protection" against cryptosporidium infiltration at Luimnagh by June 7th.

The number of laboratory-confirmed cases of the gastro-intestinal illness associated with the parasite was 214 up to the middle of last week, and HSE West is concerned that the weekly total is not dropping. Some 75 per cent of these cases have been infected by cryptosporidium hominis, which is associated with human sewage, and 40 people have been admitted to hospital.

The majority of cases referred to doctors involved children under 10 years of age, and three were referred to specialist children's hospitals due to the serious nature of their condition. HSE West believes that the total number affected in the community could be as high as 2,000.

A new grouping called the Free Safe Water group organised Saturday's demonstration. "We have an obscene situation where many families and individuals are suffering serious financial difficulties because they are forced to buy clean water due to the incompetence of the Irish Government and city bureaucrats," Dette McLoughlin of the group said.

"Despite the fact that there is an election going on, only independent candidate Catherine Connolly and the Labour Party's Michael D. Higgins have supported the campaign for free safe water for the people of Galway," she said.

Also speaking at Saturday's demonstration which marched from Spanish Arch to Eyre Square were anglers' representative John Gibbons and Maeve Kelly of the Galway Water Crisis group which has set up an internet link on www.myspace.com.

It wants an independent group of specialists to tackle the source of Galway's water problems - still not specifically identified.

DRakE

I always found the water perfectly fine for consumption, people who complained about it and only bought bottled water seemed like snobby **** to me.

Still havent had a problem drinking from the tap

po0k

That's because you're dead already.


OT: Not like we didn't see this coming.

JohnCleary

Just swallow.

Interceptor

Meh. I live outside Tuam and we're supplied from a group water scheme which runs dry every summer, so no change there. I wouldn't mind if it didn't fecking lash down rain every fecking day of the summer. And my wife blew up the shower so I have to wash in work (me so smelly...)


'cptr

Tar.Aldarion

Ah feck.

Interceptor

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

Ah feck.

Is that 'Ah feck' to anything in particular, or the water situation in general? Or did you mean to say something different and witty but were too baked?

'cptr

BrokenArrows

who would have thought. Water rationing in ireland of all places.

SimpleSam06

kraggy wrote:

So you won't mind not showering for the next year if the worst case scenario occured?

Well, it is the klingon way! Seriously though, rob a snickers in a shop and you'll get six months. Mismanage and squander literally millions of euros of public (taxpayers) money, and get a golden handshake and retirement package. At what point does incompetence become criminal?

Tar.Aldarion

Interceptor wrote:

Is that 'Ah feck' to anything in particular, or the water situation in general? Or did you mean to say something different and witty but were too baked?

'cptr

Nope, no reason. Two arbitrary words.

DRakE

SyxPak wrote:

That's because you're dead already.

Sponge Bob

Sponge Bob wrote:

It seems Tuam cannot supply enough water to replace the plant thats being taken out of service for an upgrade.

and now thats official . Tuam cannot realistically supply the necessary water until September is what I hear .

Last update from the council (May 22nd) is here

http://www.galway.ie/en/Services/WaterServices/WaterContamination/LatestUpdate/

• Headford: The Council has made an agreement to take a supply of water from the Caherlistrane/Kilcoona Group Water Supply on a temporary basis until such time as the planned water supply extension from Luimnagh is finished. The necessary works to enable the temporary supply to be used are completed and the connection has been made. However, in order to minimise the demand on the Group Scheme source and so protect the integrity of the supply, a programme of leak detection measures and mains repair has commenced in Headford and the group schemes served from the Headford network. This work will be completed as quickly as possible.

apparently this will kick in during June sometime so Headford will be fine .

• Tuam Regional Water Supply Scheme: In order to optimise the water treatment process at Luimnagh and provide further protection against crytopsporidium infiltration, a process of coagulation and flocculation will be introduced. Although difficult to establish because of the very clear raw water quality, it is hoped to have this process in place by 7th June 2007. The necessary works are ongoing and are on schedule. In addition to the coagulation and flocculation, ultra-violet treatment will be installed at the Luimnagh plant to further improve the treatment process. The installation of UV treatment is expected to be completed by February 2008.

This is way behind . September now.

• Galway City Water Supply: A key objective for the resolution of the current situation is the discontinuation of water production from the ‘old’ water treatment works at Terryland in Galway City. This can be achieved by supplying additional volumes of water from the County through the Tuam Regional Water Supply Scheme served by the Luimnagh water treatment plant to a capacity of 48,000m3 per day which was due to be completed in September/October 2007. Efforts are being made to accelerate the programme of works and it is now planned to have the additional water pumping capacity in place by 15th June 2007. This will enable a total of 17,000 m3 per day to be made available to the city and allow the old treatment works at Terryland to be taken out of commission.

The additional pumping capacity will not be there by the 15th June

now to the corpo

http://www.galwaycity.ie/NewsFlash/WaterContamination/ 29th may

The short term engineering solutions for the provision of an alternate supply of water are progressing and 9,800m³ per day was supplied from Luimnagh by the scheduled date i.e. 8th May 2007. Arrangements are in place to increase the volume to 11,000 m³ by 18th May 2007 and 17,000 m³ by 15th June 2007. Effectively, the supply from the 15th June, 2007 will allow Galway City Council to commence decommissioning the old Waterworks at Terryland and therefore commence the restoration of safe drinking water supplies to the City.

Basically the additional pumping is considered unfeasible before September. In order to turn off the old waterworks AND FLUSH THE PIPES there is no choice but to consider demand reduction measures like hosepipe and carwash bans and possibly rolling cutoffs as well.

Strangely there was no confirmation in that update from the 29th of may that the target amount from the 18th of May was being delivered. That target should have been described in the past tense....surely .

Unless there is a dramatic demand reduction the old waterworks will not be turned off in time for the races. Thats that.