Water security - Deferring charges is dangerous

THERE is a growing recognition that the age of cheap, or in our case free, domestic water is coming to an end.

Our water infrastructure leaks like a sieve and because of this we waste far too much of this precious, finite resource. We — home owners, industry, forestry, farmers and local authorities — are polluting water sources at an alarming, suicidal rate. Because we imagine water is free we use it with abandon and without wondering if our habits are in any way sustainable. Our position, and our government’s, is delusional and increasingly isolated. Unless we start to fund a secure, modern water system we are setting ourselves up for a fall.

European environment commissioner Stavros Dimas told a conference in Zaragoza last week that Europe is wasting too much water. And, in an effort to counter this flagrance, he insisted that the guiding principle has to be: the user pays.

“Clean drinking water is a vital resource and people have to realise they must pay for it in exactly the same way as they do for their petrol, heat and energy,” said the commissioner. “It is possible to live without oil but it is not possible to live without water,” he warned.

Last month Forfás, the national policy advisory body for enterprise and science, warned that four urban centres — Dublin, Galway, Athlone and Letterkenny — may face water shortages within five years unless significant investment is made in infrastructure. Forfás also identified serious problems with leakages. “Approximately 43% of treated drinking water produced... is lost before it reaches the consumer,” it stated.

Forfás was not the only source to voice concern about our water security last month. Professor John Sweeney, head of the Irish climate analysis and research unit at NUI Maynooth, said charges are inevitable because water will have to be brought from the north and west to more heavily populated areas. He also said that putting a price on water was as important as introducing carbon taxes.

Dublin will require an additional 350 million litres of water a day by 2015 and does not have the capacity to meet this demand. There are no water charges for domestic users in Ireland because Government negotiated a derogation from the EU water framework directive.

Yet, Environment Minister John Gormley responded to this intensifying pressure by saying that the Government does not plan to charge householders for water, but admitted the country will face water shortages.

He did not say how he would square that circle. Nor did he say how he imagined we can satisfy projected needs without developing new infrastructure, infrastructure we did not build in the good times and may struggle to build in these changed and straitened times.

It seems as plain as the nose on your face. The easiest, the best and the fairest way to pay for this new infrastructure is through ring-fenced water charges. Of course, when water charges are introduced, local authorities will have to be given a deadline to resolve leakage issues and anyone below a certain income level must be exempt.

Next month’s budget would be a good opportunity to start the process of securing our water supplies and ensuring industrialists that we can supply enough clean water to sustain their enterprises and our jobs.

Introducing water charges might affect government ratings in the short term but that unpopularity would be nothing compared with the anger that would be provoked by needless water shortages.