Water plant to be fully operational by end of week

AN end is in sight to the crisis that has left almost 20,000 households in Cork city without water after city officials last night predicted its damaged treatment plant would return to full production before next Sunday.

However, Cork City Council warned it could take an additional two to three days to return the distribution system for drinking water to normal.

The council said it anticipates difficulties such as silting and airlocking in the city’s 600km pipe distribution network, leading to a slow return to full service.

In the meantime, both emergency drinking water — subject to advice to boil — and sanitary water will continue to be made available at 55 locations around the city and will continue until water supplies are satisfactorily restored.

Parts of Cork city left without water following last week’s devastating floods have had supply restored after engineers rerouted pipes and diverted some of the supply that serves Mahon and Bishopstown.

Yesterday, Gerry O’Beirne, director of service at the council’s environment department, said these supplies will be maintained until full service is restored, unless interrupted by “bursts”, caused by pumping water through a mains supply at higher pressure than normal.

Areas with supply restored on foot of rerouting include the city’s centre island and lower Blackpool, and yesterday the South Infirmary Hospital and St Finbarr’s Hospital on Douglas Road were added to that list.

Mr O’Beirne said areas in the vicinity of both hospitals should have a water supply. In other areas, householders have experienced intermittent water supplies by virtue of the city council rerouting during periods of low demand such as night-time.

Mr O’Beirne said this would result in tanks filling intermittently, but this supply will not be maintained.

Water currently being used to supply households and businesses that would otherwise be without comes from two regional water supply schemes, Glashaboy and Inniscarra. Up to 16,000 households on the northside of Cork city, served by the Lee Road Water Treatment Plant, remain without water.

The last of the damaged pumps have been removed from the plant, parts of which had been under 6ft of water. All are now offsite and various companies have been contracted to assist in the drying-out process.

A number of specialists were also inspecting the plant yesterday, including a team of electricians tasked with inspecting the major electrical installations needed to run the pumps which deal with 10 million gallons of water per day.

Mr O’Beirne said the inspection of the plant hadn’t produced any “shocks or surprises yet”. However, he said getting supply restored was not as straightforward as refitting the pumps.

He said, it will involve ensuring the three reservoirs that supply the city are in working order, and dealing with airlocks in the 600km city network of pipes.