Challenging the EPA

Challenging the EPA water quality report

Liamy MacNally

The leader of the Fine Gael party on Mayo County Council, Cllr Paddy McGuinness, recently submitted a motion calling for ‘a comprehensive statement on all aspects of the recent EPA report on water quality insofar as it relates to Mayo’. The EPA report, on the quality of drinking water in 2005, was highly critical of Mayo County Council.
The Council was castigated over its monitoring of water quality, the frequency of its sampling, poor compliance standards pertaining to Private Group Water Schemes, and exceedance cases and non-compliance in public schemes. It was a hard blow to Mayo County Council. To be more specific, it was a bombshell to those people who work directly in the ‘water section’ of the County Council. Some people will be quick to state that the Council was caught offside on the water quality issue. That would be to accept that what the EPA stated is true. The EPA does not have a monopoly on truth, any more than Mayo County Council. Most of those who have responsibility for water quality in the county know that too well. The remainder also knows it now. 

FIGHTING BACK
Mayo County Council did not accept the findings of the EPA and mounted a strong defence of its position. The Director of Services, Séamus Granahan, was quick to refute the EPA claims. There is a tendency in some quarters to accept that everything the EPA does is kosher and all their pronouncements can sit alongside the Gospels. For those with such a disposition it would be important for them to know what the EPA has sanctioned on leachate removal. Leachate is one of the unhealthy by-products at places like the Derrinumera Landfill site on the Castlebar to Newport Road.
The EPA has allowed the removal and transport of the leachate from this site for disposal at the Castlebar Treatment Plant. Before Christmas it allowed the removal and transport of the leachate to the Westport Treatment Plant. The EPA needs to be forthcoming with full and explicit explanations for their actions in both these cases. Many people would claim that the EPA should have gone public stating that it had approved the ‘disposal’ of leachate in such a manner.
Some people claim that leachate cannot be disposed of in such a manner and actually poses a serious health risk by attempting to do what the EPA has approved. This is a story for another day. It just raises the question mark over the EPA’s modus operandi. In that context, Mayo County Council officials were correct to question the EPA water quality report.                

MONITORING QUALITY
The EPA report states that no monitoring was carried out on any of the 100 public group water schemes in Mayo. This is not true. Mayo County Council monitors the group schemes which are attached to the public water supplies as part of the monitoring of that public water supply. The check sampling and testing of all the public supplies is carried out by the Health Service Executive (HSE) for the Council. For the record, there were 676 check samples analysed by the HSE.  An independent laboratory tested 26 audit samples of the public water supplies in Mayo. These samples included group schemes connected to the public supplies. Mayo County Council is on record as stating that any changes to the monitoring regime proposed by the EPA will be adopted.

GROUP WATER SCHEMES
No one is claiming that water quality is not an issue in Mayo. Of course it is. There are about 12,000 homes served by private group water schemes in the county with serious water quality problems. Yours truly is in one such home. The easy thing is to sit back, pontificate, criticise and settle into the armchair perched on the fence of the high moral ground. 
One has to acknowledge the hard work, graft and thanklessness that have already filled the cups of volunteers on private group water schemes across the county. These are men and women who chose to do something to provide a water supply to a townland or village rather than sit back and let others do it. The good news for over 7,000 of these homes is that their respective schemes are now partnered with Mayo County Council, the National Federation of Group Water Schemes and the Department of Environment Heritage & Local Government under two Bundled DBO (Design, Build and Operate) Projects which should be completed and comply with the Water Quality Directive by the end of next year.
Mayo DBO Bundle 1, covering almost 4,000 houses, should actually be completed by the end of this autumn. Mayo DBO Bundle 2, serving almost 3,300 houses, should be finished by autumn next year. Any remaining schemes will be connected to the public mains, as ten were in 2005, with almost 1,000 houses. Another 670 houses or so will be added this year under this method. 

FUNDING AVAILABLE
A major funding announcement is expected tomorrow, Thursday, when the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dick Roche visits Áras an Chontae. €17.5 million has been allocated to Mayo County Council for each of the last two years for the Rural Water Programme. Naturally, some Group Water Schemes remain outside this net, for whatever reason. Killasser Group Water Scheme, with 400 homes, is one example.    
Under the Design, Build and Operate (DBO) of Bundle 1 there are 15 Group Water Schemes with 12 new treatment plants providing clean water to almost 12,000 people. The DBO contractor is also taking over two existing plants at Bohola GWS and Belderg GWS. 
DBO Bundle 2 covers 19 Group Water Schemes and will serve almost 10,000 people. This project has gone to tender for completion by late next year. 
Dedicated staff in Mayo County Council, the National Federation of GWS and the Department, would love the opportunity to challenge the EPA report.  Suffice that senior officials do the honours. Cllr Paddy McGuinness should be encouraged by the Council’s spirited response.