Sir, – I am delighted that 24-hour water supply has been returned to Dublin consumers. It is clear recent problems have been caused by a shortage of treatment capacity due to past under-investment, not by any shortage of raw water – the reservoirs are full.
Once again we have heard the chorus “Dublin must have Shannon water”. The proposed Shannon extraction scheme will cost around €500 million and take around 10 years to complete, adding half as much again to Dublin water supplies. I suggest that those promoting this scheme have contributed to recent problems by diverting attention from the incremental and focused investment needed to meet Dublin’s real needs for water supplies. I believe engineers and others who have been working on the scheme for years are blinkered to alternatives which can provide Dublin with cheaper, more secure supplies of treated water, that incrementally track actual demand with shorter lead-times. If and when more raw water is needed there are alternatives to the Shannon which have not been properly evaluated, among them: renewing the distribution network to stop leaks – close to 30 per cent in Dublin, as against 7 per cent in Germany; tapping sustainably available groundwater from the Fingal-Meath aquifer; and recycling water, eg by re-circulating water from Islandbridge to Leixlip to maintain statutory flows in the Liffey while allowing greater extraction at Leixlip.
I urge the powers that be in Government, Irish Water and the future Economic Regulator for Water to urgently review how Dublin’s future needs for water may best be met. By challenging the engineers to think afresh we can only improve their solutions.
It is right for me to declare a personal interest in the result. I live on the banks of the Shannon on Lough Derg, and with very many others I am extremely concerned that the current plans for Shannon extraction threaten an ecological catastrophe for the waterway. But I also want to see Dublin successfully compete with other city regions across Europe. Unnecessarily large supplies of expensive water can only damage Dublin’s chances of doing so. – Yours, etc,
JOC SANDERS CEng,
Dromineer,
Nenagh,
Co Tipperary.