Waterford Beaches are a bit sh!t (literally)

An_Toirpin

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Kracken wrote: »

I think the biggest miss here is that water in other countries is privatised, therefore a profit is required to make it work. Profit therefore means that you will have to cost save is revenue is down. The cheapest parts and labour will be sought and the effectiveness drops of installation and so on. That was evident when the likes of Accenture were hired to consult for Irish water, it was to bring a model in for privatisation online and transfers over the current system.

We in the past have never spent the money required to maintain the system, but that is the issue with social schemes they get defunded with with every government regardless the party. Where in reality it needs to be legislated to having a set amount being set aside per term to maintain the system for maintenance, growth, supply and quality.

completely agree, and i think this showed in the protests as well, many people realised this. theres mounting evidence to show that privatising critical public infrastructures ultimately fails for the reasons in which you ve explained, its interesting to see a small section of the british rail system being recently re-nationalised.

Irish Water did not amount of water privatisation but lets say it did. Is privatisation so bad? Our new incredible motorway system is an example of such privatisation of critical infrastructure and I would say it was a huge success. If it was public only it would have never been built. Public ownership of water infrastructure has been a unmitigated disaster since the abolition of water charges in 1979. But I don't care who owns it as long er you pay for what you use. The success of the anti water charges campaign was a sad example of public hysteria trumping over well established facts.

Wanderer78

An_Toirpin wrote:

You are right, It would be political suicide, but largely due to the toxic efforts efforts of Right2Water. It is absurd to say taxing labour is unsustainable in this country as most peer countries have higher labour taxes. Water charges wouldn't even be a labour tax, it is consumption tax. Water charges help the poor as they no longer have to subsidize water waste.

Oh dear, please tell me you're not affiliated with a political party, we truly need to move on from this dangerous and regressive thinking. There are many well respected social, political and economic commentators explaining in great detail how taxation has been moving from capital towards things such as labour for decades now, this process is slowly failing. You will find all workers are in fact consumers of water, and most people, are in fact workers, and charging for the consumption of water is an indirect method of a labour tax, even though as discussed, would of course probably mean a reduction in consumption if introduced. Again, we need to find ways of taxing 'capital' to fund our critical infrastructures, but of course the taxation of labour must also play it's part, but currently this is uneven, and dangerously uneven.

Johnboy1951

An_Toirpin wrote: »

Irish Water did not amount of water privatisation but lets say it did. Is privatisation so bad? Our new incredible motorway system is an example of such privatisation of critical infrastructure and I would say it was a huge success. If it was public only it would have never been built. Public ownership of water infrastructure has been a unmitigated disaster since the abolition of water charges in 1979. But I don't care who owns it as long er you pay for what you use. The success of the anti water charges campaign was a sad example of public hysteria trumping over well established facts.

Privatisation of any critical infrastructure is always a bad thing! Terrible!
To realise this all you have to do is consider what would be the ONLY purpose of such a company ........ to enhance the income/wealth of the shareholders.
In public ownership, the purpose is to be of benefit to society.

My personal objection to the water meters was that they were there to meter the low-hanging fruit with no information published to back up the claims of individuals wasting water in any great numbers.

In fact it turned out that the major leaks were due to deteriorating infrastructure long before the pipes got anywhere close to individual homes.
~50% of the treated water was wasted before it could be used by anyone !!!!!!

Yeah, a real good idea that!


What all this has to do with the subject title is beyond me.

Poor Uncle Tom

It's typical, a thread on beach ratings has degenerated into a bickering match on protests and water charges.

azimuth17

A very badly named thread has disintegrated into waffle.

An_Toirpin

Our beaches are not going to clean themselves. The current system does not work.

Poor Uncle Tom

An_Toirpin wrote: »

Our beaches are not going to clean themselves. The current system does not work.

What exactly are you calling the current system?

If we take two points in time, 20 years ago and today and see what has changed.

Relevant farm practices, 20 years ago it was common to pump pasture lands with chemical nitrates and urea to turbo charge the production of grasses and crops leading to over use and leaching of these chemicals into our waterways. With the REPS programmes and the Nitrates Directive in the intervening years, farm practices today are far more organic and cleaner for the environment with less chemicals and more natural manures being used.

One off houses and septic tanks, 20 years ago one off houses were loosely tied to installing septic tank systems in compliance with SR6 1991 and generally were constructed to a very poor standard as the installation of those systems were left in the applicants hands totally. Today the treatment of effluents from a one-off house are based on a specific site suitability assessment and any planning permission has a very onerous condition requiring certification, pictures and material receipts to be forwarded and maintenance records to be kept for inspection with a range of possible fines capable of being imposed for non compliance.

Housing developments and towns sewerage systems. I think we can agree that these were in a very poor condition 20 years ago, but in the meantime a lot of upgrading works have been carried out. The new treatment system for Dungarvan at the Quigley Magnasite site in Ballinacourty comes to mind, as well as the recent commissioning of the Ardmore Treatment System leading to their first Blue Beach Flag this week in over 20 years. The sewerage systems throughout the county are being upgraded on a continual basis and it will take time but things are getting better.

Commercial and Industrial Developments. It's safe to say that 20 years ago any of these large industrial developments (probably without exception) were polluting to some degree. Today the licensing of wastes production and off site movement of wastes are handled by the EPA and not the Local Authorities anymore. The EC Directives under which these licenses are obtained are very onerous on the Industries involved and the penalties for non compliance are severe.

And all of this in the face of continual development over the 20 year period of farms, commercial and industrial developments, housing developments and one-off house developments. I think the "current situation" is working and working well as each of the offending areas are being tackled at root source and progress is being made and more importantly progress is continual.

An_Toirpin

Poor Uncle Tom wrote: »

An_Toirpin wrote: »

Our beaches are not going to clean themselves. The current system does not work.

What exactly are you calling the current system?

If we take two points in time, 20 years ago and today and see what has changed.

Relevant farm practices, 20 years ago it was common to pump pasture lands with chemical nitrates and urea to turbo charge the production of grasses and crops leading to over use and leaching of these chemicals into our waterways. With the REPS programmes and the Nitrates Directive in the intervening years, farm practices today are far more organic and cleaner for the environment with less chemicals and more natural manures being used.

One off houses and septic tanks, 20 years ago one off houses were loosely tied to installing septic tank systems in compliance with SR6 1991 and generally were constructed to a very poor standard as the installation of those systems were left in the applicants hands totally. Today the treatment of effluents from a one-off house are based on a specific site suitability assessment and any planning permission has a very onerous condition requiring certification, pictures and material receipts to be forwarded and maintenance records to be kept for inspection with a range of possible fines capable of being imposed for non compliance.

Housing developments and towns sewerage systems. I think we can agree that these were in a very poor condition 20 years ago, but in the meantime a lot of upgrading works have been carried out. The new treatment system for Dungarvan at the Quigley Magnasite site in Ballinacourty comes to mind, as well as the recent commissioning of the Ardmore Treatment System leading to their first Blue Beach Flag this week in over 20 years. The sewerage systems throughout the county are being upgraded on a continual basis and it will take time but things are getting better.

Commercial and Industrial Developments. It's safe to say that 20 years ago any of these large industrial developments (probably without exception) were polluting to some degree. Today the licensing of wastes production and off site movement of wastes are handled by the EPA and not the Local Authorities anymore. The EC Directives under which these licenses are obtained are very onerous on the Industries involved and the penalties for non compliance are severe.

And all of this in the face of continual development over the 20 year period of farms, commercial and industrial developments, housing developments and one-off house developments. I think the "current situation" is working and working well as each of the offending areas are being tackled at root source and progress is being made and more importantly progress is continual.

There are some improvements but it is a less rosy picture than you paint. For example I don't see any resurgence in pearl mussel numbers. You mention septic tank inspection. Yes that is surely helping but the rate is inspection is painfully low and non complication is extremely unlikely to be noticed. Onerous fines on paper doen't mean much if people feel they will never get caught. The main areas where there has ben progress is where the system ensures the polluter pays and that is is what I have been stressing all along on this thread.

Poor Uncle Tom

An_Toirpin wrote: »

There are some improvements but it is a less rosy picture than you paint. For example I don't see any resurgence in pearl mussel numbers.

Nature is a wonderous force, all it takes to reach full health is time and while patience is not a virtue you seem to embrace, in environmental terms the healing is underway even now. Given that the life span of a pearl mussel is between 86 and 102 years the regrowth of pearl mussel numbers can never be referred to as a resurgence, unless there's a nuclear element involved and we have worse things to ponder if that ever happens!

An_Toirpin wrote: »

You mention septic tank inspection. Yes that is surely helping but the rate is inspection is painfully low and non complication is extremely unlikely to be noticed.

Actually I don't mention septic tank inspection, I mention the keeping of contractual paperwork and evidence for inspection purposes. You seem to be mixing up the 'septic tank inspections' introduced by Phil Hogan to generate government funds through another stealth tax, which lost momentum when he was called out on it and it died a death. The older septic tank systems are being upgraded on a continual basis by the owners when the properties are being developed which happens all the time. Again over time all the systems will be upgraded to comply with current regulations.

An_Toirpin wrote: »

Onerous fines on paper doen't mean much if people feel they will never get caught. The main areas where there has ben progress is where the system ensures the polluter pays and that is is what I have been stressing all along on this thread.

You seem to be missing the point that the polluter cant pay if the legislation is not in place to fine him/her to begin with!

You really need to take a step back and smell the roses, take a nice walk along a beach or a riparian stroll may be in order, embrace nature on a local level she's far healthier now than she was 20 years ago.

Wanderer78

An_Toirpin wrote:

There are some improvements but it is a less rosy picture than you paint. For example I don't see any resurgence in pearl mussel numbers. You mention septic tank inspection. Yes that is surely helping but the rate is inspection is painfully low and non complication is extremely unlikely to be noticed. Onerous fines on paper doen't mean much if people feel they will never get caught. The main areas where there has ben progress is where the system ensures the polluter pays and that is is what I have been stressing all along on this thread.

'the polluter pays' has serious and fundamental flaws, even though it is a very good idea, it cannot, and should not be solely relied upon to solve our environmental issues, as it heavily relies upon the individual to solve these issues, and in many cases, the individual is not the true polluter, but in fact is only a partial entity, and in some cases, plays no part in creating the pollution.