Water woes - Attitudes to conservation must change

WITH global reserves of oil and other crucial natural resources dwindling at a frightening pace, Ireland is probably perceived as having an abundance of perhaps the most vital resource of all — water.

The popular image of this country is of a green land inundated by rain and up to our tonsils in water. Perhaps this picture explains why, as is revealed in today’s Irish Examiner investigative report, we are wasting water supplies up and down the country at a rate that is nothing short of mind-boggling.

Somewhere between local authority treatment works and the tap, hundreds of millions of litres of water are literally disappearing every day. The simple explanation for this alarming scenario is that the pipes are leaking like a sieve and that an outdated countrywide network is in dire need of a big overhaul. Finding a solution to this problem is essential but it will be a costly undertaking. Like it or not, it will hit all of us where it hurts most — in our pockets.

Understandably, the rocketing price of oil and the soaring cost of basic foodstuffs are the focus of government and media concern around the world. Arguably, however, the threat to global water supplies will become an issue of even greater concern.

While we all rely on clean water for drinking, washing, and toilets, by far the main consumers are farming and industry where water is essential for producing crops, feeding animals and manufacturing commodities.

Yet, as witnessed in the public health threat posed by last year’s outbreak of water contamination in Galway, as a nation we have presided over the insidious pollution of rivers, lakes and underground aquifers, a scandalous situation that went on for decades while the vexed issue of water conservation received scant attention from successive governments. Since 2003, in yet another instance of too little too late, the government has had to pour e288 million into tackling this problem.

Clearly, Ireland’s growing crisis is compounded by the astonishing waste of clean, safe, fresh water on a scale graphically outlined in today’s report. Incredibly, 487 million litres, more than 43% of all the drinking water produced across the country is vanishing due to the chronic condition of our water infrastructure.

Enough water to fill dozens of Olympic-size swimming pools is being lost every day because of leaks, bad connections and antiquated engineering. These losses are costing millions of euro to boost production for our growing needs.

In some parts of the country, the disappearance of what officialdom euphemistically describes as “unaccounted for water” reaches a staggering 60% while a lot more than half the water produced in other areas never reaches the tap. So appalling is the situation that nine counties cannot account for more than half of their supply. Adding to the leaks, careless consumers and running taps are also blamed for wasting water.

As yet, the Government has no plans to introduce domestic metering. But that political nettle may have to be grasped to help meet the soaring cost of supplying drinking water. As the Green’s Dan Boyle says in his analysis of the crisis, that is the elephant in the room.

One thing is clear — whether or not domestic metering is in the pipeline, there can be no doubting attitudes to water conservation have to change radically in Ireland.