Sir, – Anthony Leddin correctly highlights the risks of extracting water from the Shannon during drier summer spells (“Shannon water abstraction raises summer flow concerns,“ Letters, March 16th).
But far from being grounds to cancel the scheme, it provides an excellent opportunity to expand it.
What the proposed scheme really lacks is a big reservoir constructed in a flooded valley at the top of the Slieve Bloom mountains.
Excess renewable energy can be used to pump water up to a reservoir in winter months. This water can, in turn, be released in the direction of Dublin, after which the process can happen all over again. Similar processes already take place at the Turlough Hill facility in Co Wicklow. The reservoir can also provide leisure use in the Hidden Heartlands while performing a vital function.
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Thinking a little bigger than the unambitious scheme Uisce Éireann has proposed can offer multiple benefits, if only those employed to do so had the imagination.
As we are going to endure local opposition anyway, then let it be for far more imaginative projects like those we once embarked upon in Ardnacrusha and Turlough Hill. – Yours, etc,
ALEX WILSDON,
Dublin Road,
Kilkenny.
