Dangerous indifference - Another water warning

THE Environmental Protection Agency (EPA )has, once again, pointed to our reckless stewardship of a resource that is becoming more and more precious — water.

The watchdog’s urban waste-water treatment report for 2015 records that raw sewage still flows into water at 43 urban centres. On top of that, there are 124 areas where “priority issues” relating to sewage have not been resolved. Among those are Dublin, Cork, and Galway. That this indictment of Cork comes a decade after almost €300m was spent on the city’s main drainage system is particularly disappointing.

The report is confirmation that local authorities, after farming, are the primary polluters of our waterways, but, in reality, that arm’s-length judgement is dishonest. Local authorities are reflective of the society they serve, and if that society chooses not to support them with the resources needed to resolve these issues, then they can hardly be held responsible. Nevertheless, the EPA found that 29 sites did not have operational or maintenance programmes and that the delivery of new schemes was inordinately slow.