Cork homes hit with brown tap water again — anger grows as trust in Uisce Éireann wanes
In a September 2022 update, Uisce Éireann said water produced in a new treatment system was impacting some of the older pipes, causing sediment to come loose. Picture: Clare Keogh
The brown water coming through the taps in homes on Cork’s northside in recent days was a sharp reminder that the issue with the city’s water supply has not gone away.
The discolouration that greeted Tom Coleman on two different days may not have been a familiar sight in his home, but it has been common in many areas of Cork City for a number of years.
He said: “It was very discoloured. I don’t know why. It went away again, but it lasted a few hours. It was kind of frightening to say the least — it was really discoloured.”
He said there was no notification from Uisce Éireann that there would be an issue so that people could prepare for it.
He added: “We are lucky really here, but twice last week it was very bad. For some reason, we had it twice in one week.”
In July, Uisce Éireann issued its most recent update regarding discolouration of water in the city — the 62nd since August 2022.
It said that its “flushing programme” was continuing, moving to the Mayfield and Silversprings area.
The State utility says the flushing programme “is a series of proactive flushing works which aims to improve water quality for homes and businesses across Cork City, and is part of Uisce Éireann’s network improvement plan to address water discolouration reports”.
Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould has raised the issue in the Dáil several times, and says he is regularly getting calls from constituents — including last week in relation to Blarney St, Parklands in the Commons Rd area, and Riverstown in Glanmire.
He said people are “fed up” of contacting Uisce Éireann about issues in their area and do not always contact the company.
"You have to leave it run then for it to clear," he said.
Mr Gould added that people do not “trust the water”, resulting in people in affected areas having to purchase bottled water as part of their regular shopping.
The city has now been dealing with the issue for almost three years, he pointed out, since the new water treatment plant on the Lee Rd was commissioned.
This was acknowledged by Uisce Éireann in one of the September 2022 updates on the discolouration issue, in which the company said that investigations into the issue “found that following a recent upgrade of infrastructure in Cork City, where a number of new treatment systems are being brought online, that water being produced was impacting on some of the older pipes in the network, thus causing sediment to come loose and cause a discolouration of the water being supplied to customers".
In the same update, the company said: “We are actively working to adapt the process to ensure that the sediment does not break down and cause the discolouration.”
The company says that the sediment can include naturally occurring metals such as manganese and iron.
Typically, the flushing programme takes place late at night and in the early hours of the morning “to allow the network to have time to return to normal before the morning demand starts, reducing the potential for discoloured water at customers’ taps”, according to Uisce Éireann.
Green Party councillor Oliver Moran said that, while the issue has not gone away, there appears to have been a drop off in contacts from residents about incidents.
He said: “The problem was so widespread 18 months ago, I developed a dedicated website to report issues to Uisce Éireann on behalf of constituents.
"That began to noticeably reduce around October last year to between 20–30 per month. Since May, the number using the website has fallen again.”
He pointed out, however, that “Uisce Éireann launched its own reporting website in July, which might also be a reason for a reduction in the number of households reporting issues that I can see”.
He said the relationship between Uisce Éireann and the elected members of Cork City Council was very poor for a while because of the issues.
" They would meet with elected members only on their terms. It was a drawn out process of negotiation to have them even appear formally before the council.
"Water services was a core part of local authority functions until very recently, and people still expect Cork City Council and their local councillors to be accountable for these issues.
Mr Moran says that when the city council wrote to Darragh O’Brien last year, when he was the minister with responsibility for local government, “we were told he doesn't have operational responsibility for water services”.
The response from his office provided the council with a “public customer service number to phone if we had a problem”.
He added: “That's crazy stuff. Who's accountable for this entity? It’s not only water quality it affects. Housing development is dependent on connections from Uisce Éireann too."
As the flushing programme continues across Cork City’s water pipe network, the recent incidents in Blarney Street and Parklands show that the discolouration issues are continuing in some areas.
“What is making people angry is they are turning on the tap, the water comes out brown, and they have not been told,” says Mr Gould.
He adds that while a number of people are believed to have become sick last year, there have not been any reports in recent months. However, he said that the impact on health can be influenced by the level of manganese in the water.
Links to a HSE factsheet about manganese have been incorporated into Uisce Éireann statements about the discolouration issue, and the information includes recognition of a health danger in situations where the level of manganese exceeds 80 micrograms per litre.
The factsheet points to “new scientific studies which show that many years of exposure to high levels of manganese may have a harmful effect on the nervous system and brain development".
Before the Dáil’s summer recess, junior minister Christopher O’Sullivan told the Oireachtas committee on housing, local government, and heritage that the issue with the discolouration was “simply not good enough” and he acknowledged health fears because of the ongoing issues.
He said: “Approximately €100m has been invested in water infrastructure in the city over the past number of years, but there is an issue with the old cast iron pipes. There are about 600km of pipes in the city. About 50% to 60% of them are old cast iron pipes.
"My understanding of the crux of the issue is that when repairs are being done or when upgrades are being done to the pipework, the old sediment in the cast iron is essentially being knocked into the water supply and we get this awful discolouration.”
He added: “Approximately €1.6m has been allocated to the enhanced processes at the Lee Rd plant, which it is hoped will address the issue.”
Some work has been carried out on upgrading pipes, including the completion in February of a water main replacement in the south quays area of the city. The project saw the replacement of 4.2km of old cast-iron mains dating back to the 1930s with modern pipes.
Meanwhile, in Ballyphehane in early August, householders endured a planned outage because of “essential works as part of upgrades to the water network from the Lough to Capwell towards South Douglas Rd”.
The issues on the northside continue as Uisce Éireann begins an upgrade project to the wastewater treatment plant on the brow of the city’s northeastern side, at Killeens, at a cost of more than €7.3m.
The project is set to get underway within days as part of Uisce Éireann’s small towns and villages growth programme.
The utility provider says the area “is currently served by overloaded and outdated wastewater treatment infrastructure and therefore plant and network upgrades are required”.
It added: “This project is being delivered to support existing and future developments within the community.
"It will improve the capacity of the existing wastewater network in the area, improving performance, reducing demands on the current network and mitigating the risk of sewer flooding within the catchment.”
Among the elements of the project is the construction of a new pumping station, which will steer the current and future raw wastewater flows to the Cork City sewer network.
A new storm holding tank, capable of holding 108 cubic metres of water, will be constructed. The project will also include the construction of a 1,100m rising main to the high point of the pipeline and 1,793m gravity sewer main to the connection manhole.
The works are being carried out by Ward and Burke Ltd, with a projected completion date in 2027, according to Uisce Éireann.
In response to queries from the Uisce Éireann said: “Rehabilitation of the city’s watermains continues by replacing old cast-iron pipes with new modern pipes, along with plans to optimise watermain improvements and network configuration.
"The following water mains replacement projects were completed in 2024: Edward Walsh Rd, Pophams Rd, Cork City south quays, Sydney Park, and Dublin Hill. The work programme for 2025 is underway with three mains replacement projects in Gurranabraher, Douglas, and The Lough to Capwell. Further projects are in planning.
"This programme aims to improve water quality and reduce instances of discolouration for homes and businesses across Cork City and is part of Uisce Éireann’s network improvement plan to address water discolouration reports.”
Referencing the issues in Parklands last week, the company said: “Following a pressure valve fault in the Parklands area last week, some customers may have experienced temporary discolouration in their water supply. Following repair works to the pressure valve, flushing took place along this network to restore normal water supply. “
Despite many people including bottled water in their weekly purchases because of the water situation in Cork City, the utility company’s statement said that “there is no provision for financial compensation for people who choose to buy bottled water”.
The company said that it has a dedicated experts taskforce which continues to implement projects to tackle water discolouration, including:
- Increased sampling and testing;
- A targeted and extensive flushing programme;
- Watermains replacement;
- Treatment process optimisation;
- Invested in specialist systems to remove manganese from the source water, and reduce the interaction between the final treated water and with the city’s old cast-iron network;
- Dedicated online reporting form and webpage for customers.
The company encourages people to use its dedicated online form for customers in Cork City to report instances of discolouration, at Report Discolouration | Uisce Éireann. The company said that “alongside our regular monitoring and testing, this provides us with real-time insights into any emerging issues and helps identify areas of focus for future works”.
A family living in West Waterford has had to contact Uisce Éireann 48 times in the past two years because of issues with the water supply.
The family, who asked not to be identified, is now planning to sink a well for their own private supply, in frustration over the ongoing difficulties with the local supply.
A member of the family, which comprises of two parents and two young children, said the issue is a “small pumping station that has not been updated properly for years and is insufficient”.
He pointed out that the family lives close to the pumping station, meaning their home is the first to lose water and are the last to have it back. He said the majority of neighbours have their own wells. He said the family moved to the area in August 2023.
Over a recent weekend, three visitors were staying with the family when the water went off — which he described as stressful and embarrassing.
He explained that bottled water is always in their home, adding: “There are times you are trying to rinse fruit and you have to get out mineral water.
"Sometimes you have to do washing up in bought water, we have water butts that we can use to flush the toilet. Generally, if it's only less than 24 hours, there should be enough water in the tank.”
Meanwhile, during the June bank holiday weekend, a farmer in the Ballyhooly area had to draw water in large portable tanks to 150 livestock over a number of days after a six-day outage in the area.
He said there was a major leak in the area and a new pipe was being put down. While some people’s water service was restored for the bank holiday weekend, a number of others were not.
The farmer, who does not want to be identified, said it is very frustrating because it is not the only time that the locality has been hit with water issues.
