Waste treatment record further muddied despite €8bn spend

NEARLY €8 billion has been spent upgrading the country’s water systems over the past decade.

However, many residential areas do not have safe drinking water and untreated sewage is still being released into our waterways.

Now, despite the Government’s attempts to catch up, the problem is likely to remain critical because planners have been handing out building permissions without taking into account whether or not systems can cope with the extra pressure.

Yesterday’s ruling by the European Court of Justice, which found six big towns had inadequate or non-existent sewage treatment plants, is the latest in a series of environmental cases lost by the Irish Government.

The court has already found against Ireland for failing to implement the Drinking Water and Dangerous Substances directives.

However, the country is running the risk of being fined for failing to take action to rectify the situation.

The cryptosporidium problem in Galway last year demonstrated to the public the directives were important. That contamination occurred because a proper treatment system was not in place and authorities were over-reliant on chlorine to kill the bugs — but it was not strong enough to kill the cryptosporidium parasite.

A recent Forfás report pointed out demands on water and waste water services had grown sharply because of the economic and population growth. This was echoed by Brussels when they said that planners must ensure the services can cope before granting permission for new developments.

A lot of money has gone into the systems for Cork, Limerick and Galway but there are problems with Dublin and Ringaskiddy, which is probably the most important treatment plant in the country.

“The plant is not coping with the loads going through it. Urban expansion needs to be taken into account. Planners should be taking into account the availability of treatment plants and ensure they are not overloaded,” said a commission expert.

The other essential is to ensure drinking water is kept well away from waste and that drinking water itself is sufficiently disinfected. The west of Ireland in particular has ongoing problems with failed safety tests.

The commission welcomed Environment Minister John Gormley’s constructive response to the latest ruling and the fact that recent legislation gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more powers to ensure the local authorities carried out their responsibilities in the area.

Mr Gormley pointed out the EPA has extra staff and has earmarked 130 of the 339 water schemes for major upgrading. They have also carried out detailed audits of more than 30 local authority water treatment plants last year and 39 this year so far.

But changing attitudes generally is taking a long time. EU officials point to Denmark — when they received a first warning about an environment problem, the minister was on the TV news that evening defending himself.

The waste water directive was first adopted in May 1991 and phased in depending on the size of the town. The deadline for the final phase covering towns with more than 15,000 people was 2000. One of its objectives is to protect sensitive areas from being polluted by human, animal and industrial waste. But it remains a big problem in the Mediterranean, the North Sea and the Baltic.

Ireland is not alone in being slow to deal with water and waste problems. Only three countries implemented the legislation in time and cases remain against several countries including Britain in relation to the North.

The programme to clean up Europe’s water and waterways is believed to be the single most costly initiative, with €152bn invested in waste water treatment alone over 20 years. The commission makes €5bn a year available towards the costs, but 25 of the EU’s 556 cities do not have treatment systems.

Consumers will shortly be able to check the quality of drinking water either by phoning a special hotline or by checking council websites.