Sir, – On Saturday, families were out along Dublin’s shores enjoying the spring weather. Kite-surfers and paddle-borders set off into waters off Bull Island and some hardy souls swam.
That morning, sewage started spewing out of a Ringsend treatment plant into the Liffey estuary due to a burst tank ("Failure of Ringsend tank led to sewage discharge into Dublin Bay", News, February 26th).
A pretty large tank as the thick brown plume captured by drone confirmed the discharge was still active after 5pm.
We only know thanks to a citizen with a drone, who saw and told us via social media.
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In the 1980s when raw sewage flowed out from this same location as a normal everyday feature, we were told that it heads straight out to sea on release and hence posed no health risk, even though some bathing water samples had extreme E coli concentrations. Coastwatch – then Dublin Bay Environment group – used a dye study and 5000 marked sticks to demonstrate that in fact the sewage can travel to Dollymount beach in 3.5 hours. There were no drones then, so RTÉ used a helicopter to film the evidence. This evidence speeded up treatment.
It is essential that we learn from this most recent incident and speed up both the improvement of the Ringsend plant and installation of a dependable efficient public alert system.
Responsibilities have to be clear.
Which official body should have provided a public warning early on Saturday? Why did it keep quiet? What is it going to change now so we can trust that officials will give timely correct alerts – not just for Ringsend, but any other plant. – Yours, etc,
KARIN DUBSKY,
Coastwatch,
Ballymoney,
Gorey,
Co Wexford.