NOW that normal water supplies have been restored in the tranquil Connemara village of Roundstone, a mystery remains about the source of last week's contamination.
It is a mystery the villagers hope Galway County Council will clear up pretty quickly, as their livelihoods depend on the area's reputation for pristine beauty. The charm of wild rugged mountains and limpid clear rock pools will fade quickly if visitors are told the water is not safe to drink.
The villagers' biggest worry is that whatever caused the contamination might pollute the water again - perhaps at the height of the tourist season next year. If that happens, the drop in visitor numbers experienced last week will he magnified tenfold and Roundstone can kiss its reputation goodbye.
Plans by Udaras na Gaeltachta to market Connemara as an ecotourism destination will also come to naught, to say nothing of the cost and inconvenience of bringing in alternative supplies.
There are plenty of rumours flying about the village as to the source of the contamination but the most plausible explanation is close at hand. The week before the contamination was identified torrential rain washed down nearby hills after a relatively dry spell.
The hills are heavily grazed by sheep, put there by local farmers who see short term interest in stuffing as many of them up on common ground as possible. The EU headage payment scheme is based on numbers, so the more they stuff up there, the more money they have in their pockets.
Think about tens of thousands of sheep droppings on the hills around Roundstone, add in flash floods caused by two or three nights of constant rain, and it is easy to see where the contamination may have originated.
But there is more to this tale than a simple parable about the dangers of overgrazing. The "normal water supply for the village (population in winter 290, in summer about 3,000) is a disgrace.
It comes from Rush Lake, a small lake on low lying ground near the sea. As the name indicates, the lake has an abundant supply of rushes - and a fine collection of water lilies. Rush Lake is a stagnant pond.
Water from it has to be pumped upwards to the village. If it is liable to contamination from sheep droppings, it is also liable to contamination from other sources. One hopes the septic tanks of nearby houses are well secured.
The water is filtered and disinfected with chlorine before reaching the taps in the village. Early this summer, the council installed an extra filter, upgraded the pumps and renewed some of the cast iron water mains which needed replacement.
In the long term, it hopes to link Roundstone to a regional water supply system which would bring water to much of Connemara from Lough Corrib. An application for EU structural funds is being considered in Brussels at the moment, says Michael Dolly, a senior executive engineer with the council.
In the meantime, similar pollution incidents in Roundstone and elsewhere are likely to happen in the future because of the source of the water, he says.
It is a sobering thought for local B&B owners, hoteliers and restaurateurs, and also for Ruairi Quinn, who was on holiday with his family in the village when the tankers arrived.
It has been another bumper year for tourism in the west, with capacity crowds in towns such as Westport and Clifden and shortages of beds at peak times.
I say "bumper" advisedly: the most tangible sign of the growth in tourist numbers was the bumper to bumper traffic in Galway and other centres during July and August. Villages such as Oughterard on the Galway Clifden road took up to 20 minutes to negotiate at times, while on Inis Mor it was lan go doras, as usual.
How long will this go on before the bubble bursts? How long before word gets out that a visit to the costa del traffico can involve the same headaches as a trip to Greece or Spain, but without the sun? It is a question the Minister for Tourism and Trade, Enda Kenny, was asked when he came to Clifden last week to launch the town's five year regeneration plan.
"I don't want to see a situation where you turn Ireland into a mass tourism destination", he replied. "I want it to be a quality product." The Government copes tourist numbers will "stabilise" at about five million per bear by the end of the century, according to the Minister. In 1990, about 1.7 million tourists came to Ireland; this year the total will be about 4.6 million.
He accepts that such a rapid rise has placed a huge strain on the sewerage and water supply systems in many areas. "It is very fair to say that if you bring too large a number into a place where you don't have the facilities, they won't come back. The quick buck merchants in this business go out of business very quickly."
But he says the plans are there to deal with the projected growth. "We have the situation across the border in Co Mayo where Lough Mask now supplies Castlebar, Claremorris, Ballyhaunis, all south Mayo. In a few years time it will supply Westport, Louisburg, Kilmaine, Newport.
"One massive reservoir - that's the solution to Mayo's water problem. Who's to say that the situation won't he the same in Galway, with Lough Corrib already supplying a very major portion of the people living there?" In the meantime, pollution incidents like those in Roundstone will happen again.
"In the case of Roundstone it's a consequence, I think, of a very heavy overground water spillage which completely swamped the filtration and went directly into the outlet", he said.
"There were very heavy rain falls during the August period and a lot of this would have gone directly into the outlet point.
