Galway water & contaminated beaches

beardybrewer

Every time I visit Kerry I find myself marvelling at how nice and tasty their tap water is. I'd say a lot of us would rather be dehydrated than drink what comes out of a Galway tap. It's not nice going down and has a distinct metallic aftertaste. And it will taste even worse in the warmer months. And now this:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/ndm-superbug-found-in-co-galway-a-first-on-european-beaches-1.3061199

“For more than 150 years we have known that the key to preventing contamination by diseases such as typhoid and cholera was to prevent faecal matter that comes out of the bottom of one person entering the mouth of another. But in Ireland we have an 18th-century problem in the 21st century,”

I still remember when the museum opened looking out the upstairs window and noticing sewage being pumped into the Corrib. I presume that's not the norm and I haven't noticed it since. But obviously there are lots of town in Co. Galway still doing it.

joeKel73

Sounds like a Galway County topic...

Zzippy

Leaving aside contaminants/treatment, typically the water in Kerry is completely different - it's not coming from limestone so it's soft water (low hardness/calcium), whereas Galway water comes from the Corrib, which drains a huge mostly limestone catchment. It's almost literally like comparing chalk and cheese.