Council working on restoring water supply

EMERGENCY services were yesterday working on the restoration of water supplies to people in a large stretch of north-east Kerry, following a huge landslide at the weekend.

However, clearance work has been suspended, pending the completion of a risk assessment by Kerry County Council. There are fears a second landslide may occur if there is further heavy rain.

Thousands of tonnes of elevated blanket bog flowed for about 3km along the River Glashoreag, a tributary of the River Smearla, which is an important source of drinking water in the area.

The Smearla is a tributary of the River Feale, a key part of an important salmon and sea trout catchment.

Brian Sweeney, senior water services engineer at Kerry County Council, said the situation was better than he had first thought and the landslide, at Kielduff, outside Tralee, had stopped.

But, he warned problems could recur if there was further heavy rainfall. “We’re by no means out of the woods yet,” he added.

Mr Sweeney also called on people to use water sparingly and a boil notice is still in place for between 3,000 and 5,000 consumers of water from the reservoir in Lyre, which has the Smearla as its source.

After peat entered the Smearla, the river was shut down as a source. Instead, the council plans to pump water overground from an unaffected tributary of the Smearla to the Lyre reservoir.

The alternative source should be in operation by today, according to Mr Sweeney.

The council said there was no need to boil water from the Dromin reservoir which takes its water from the river Feale. Dromin serves a population of around 20,000 in the towns of Listowel, Ballybunion, Tarbert and their hinterlands.

Tralee, which gets its water from Killarney, is not affected.

The Dromin reservoir is operating at about three-quarters of its capacity and consumers depending on it have been asked to limit their use of water as much as possible.

Meanwhile, the council plans to construct lagoons along the affected tributary so as to help the peat to settle.

The flow — more than four metres deep and 50 metres wide in places — gorged out large chunks of the river bank. A number of houses were isolated, two bridges were damaged, minor roads flooded and telephone phones knocked.

Anglers and environmentalists are extremely concerned about the polluting effects of the landslide and Eamon Cusack, chief executive of the Shannon Regional Fisheries Board, said it could take fish stocks five to 10 years to recover in the area.

There are also worries about the effects of pollution in the Feale, one of the country’s leading salmon angling rivers.

“We’re seriously concerned about fish stocks in the Smearla and the Feale,” said Mr Cusack adding that all fish in the inundated tributary, an important nursery for the Smearla, had been killed.

He said the damage could run into hundreds of thousands of euro and the main issue would be the rehabilitation the affected rivers.

“The main task over the next few months is to ensure the rivers are brought back to their [former] pristine condition,” said Mr Cusack.

“My board would be very concerned about the long-term effects. The effects can take a long time to show up. Fish spawned in 2007 and 2008 take two to three years to mature. Salmon returning to the river in three, or four, year’s time would be fry up there now.”