THERE'S been no improvement in the drinking water being supplied to the people of Ballycroy, Co Mayo, since I first reported on the unhappy situation a year ago.
Mayo County Council hasn't exactly been over energetic in seeking to clean up the water, which neither looks nor tastes good. It remains undrinkable because of large quantities of sheep excrement falling from the overgrazed uplands into the lake that is the supply source.
People are still drawing water from wells or boiling what's coming through their taps. The EU directive on water standards forbids the presence of any E.coli, indicating excrement, in drinking water, but high levels of E.coli have been found in the Ballycroy supply.
The good news is that the situation has come under serious scrutiny at EU level. The EU's Petitions Committee has taken on board an appeal by some local residents complaining about the overgrazing.
Green Party MEP Patricia McKenna is also to raise the issue in the European Parliament. It's just as well that the plight of Ballycroy has been taken up at European level as it has drawn little reaction from the Mayo council or, indeed, from Minister for the Environment Brendan Howl in, who more or less washed his hands of the matter when it was raised in the Dail last year.
It's a distressing situation when water unfit for human consumption could have been allowed to go into the homes of some 800 people for two years without them being informed of what was happening.
An analysis in the medical microbiology department of University College Hospital, Galway, showed that water being supplied to 240 homes was contaminated with faecal matter.
The analysis revealed that the samples were unfit for human consumption, with E.coli counts - measuring the presence of excrement ranging from nine to 32 per 100 millilitres. It doesn't sit comfortably with Mayo's tourism promotion depicting the county as a paradigm of natural goodness and loveliness.