Uisce Éireann should have 'better ambition' about keeping sewage from watercourses

Members of the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss with chairwoman Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin on a field trip to Turvey Nature Reserve near Donabate during its deliberations. Picture: Sam Boal/RollingNews 

A unanimous vote by the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss to recommend urgent action by Uisce Éireann to prevent sewage discharge to watercourses has been welcomed by the Cork Environmental Forum.

Bernadette Connolly, the co-ordinator of Cork Environmental Forum, who represented the Sustainable Water Network (SWAN), said a recommendation on Uisce Éireann by the Citizens' Assembly backed up a “very strong feeling across the sector that this is urgent”.

The assembly found that the speed at which Uisce Éireann is working to stop raw sewage being discharged into waterways is inadequate.

The recommendation targeted specifically at Uisce Éireann, formerly Irish Water, was one of 14 regarding freshwater in the Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss report published this week, and one of just two that was voted for unanimously by all 99 participating citizens.

The recommendation said the national water body’s “current timelines and targets are inadequate” to protect Irish lakes, rivers and streams, and that Uisce Éireann must invest more in improving and building water treatment plants as a matter of urgency.

Of 217 urban faulty, outdated, or over-capacity wastewater systems 61 (28%) are set to be resolved by 2027, Irish Water / Uisce Éireann CEO Niall Gleeson told an Oireachtas committee last year. File picture: Naoise Culhane

“It was good to see that this was one of the recommendations where agreement was unanimous,” Ms Connolly said.

“Cork Environmental Forum has made complaints about the release of raw sewage and it’s occurring in so many places, so it’s good that the urgency of it is highlighted in this recommendation,” she said.

“The ambition needs to be better here, no matter what the State has to do to achieve it.”

While agricultural practices are the single largest pressure on Irish freshwater systems, 13% of Irish rivers, streams, and lakes are threatened by urban wastewater and 9% are threatened by domestic wastewater, according to the EPA.

Some 29 Irish towns and villages were still discharging untreated wastewater into watercourses at the end of 2022, according to the Water Advisory Board.

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Of 217 urban faulty, outdated, or over-capacity wastewater systems across the country, 61, or 28%, of these are set to be resolved by 2027, Niall Gleeson, CEO of Uisce Éireann, told the Oireachtas committee on housing, local government and heritage late last year. 

An Uisce Éireann spokesperson told the Irish Examiner that the water body had “made big strides in improving urban wastewater treatment across Ireland” despite inheriting a water infrastructure with “legacy issues”. 

“In some cases, timelines are subject to funding approvals and other issues such as planning, land acquisition, etc which are outside of Uisce Éireann’s control and can impact delivery timelines," they said.

"It can typically take 5-7 years for a project to progress through planning to completion."