Council moves to ease water bug fears

SENIOR management at Kerry County Council has moved to ease fears of large-scale water contamination in the county.

The council has admitted almost 40% of treatment plants are at risk of being hit by cryptosporidium — the bug that led to more than 40 people being hospitalised in Galway last year.

However, the situation in Kerry was not the same as Galway, according to Kerry’s director of water services, Oliver Ring.

He said Galway’s problem was focused on a lowland lake into which effluent from towns, septic tanks and farmland was being discharged.

“Our sources [of drinking water] are mainly upland lakes and streams in sparsely populated catchments with relatively low agricultural activity,” he said.

Mr Ring also said while the aim in Kerry was to provide water free from e-coli, that was not always possible due to variations in raw water quality and some inadequate treatment facilities.

There was also a large number of small water schemes in Kerry sourced from rivers and lakes where chlorination was the only treatment, which meant there was no treatment barrier against cryptosporidium.

The council has a €255 million programme to improve water and sewage schemes in Kerry.

Also, smaller schemes are being upgraded with an annual budget of about €3m, but Mr Ring said that sum was inadequate to carry out the necessary upgrades within a reasonable time-span.

“We need to spend €20m over the next two years to meet our obligations and we intend to make an application for a comprehensive, fast-tracked programme of extra new works,” he said.

But the bulk of water produced by the council was of potable quality and was showing annual improvements, he stressed.

Independent councillor Brendan Cronin said farmers who had to restrict their operations close to water sources should be compensated.

“If this [compensation] is necessary to protect our water sources, so be it,” he remarked.

Mr Cronin referred to the situation at Lough Guitane, the single biggest source in Kerry, supplying up to 60,000 people.

In its most recent water quality report, the EPA said Lough Guitane, which supplies Killarney, Tralee and a large hinterland, was at risk from cryptosporidium because of inadequate water treatment.