FLOOD PROTECTION WORKS IN SPRINGFIELD are 95 percent complete.
In a detailed update before the Physical Development Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) of Clare County Council, Seán Lenihan outlined how the Springfield Flood Relief Scheme has dealt with supply chain issues.
Delivery of two thermal water pumps from the Netherlands which are expected to arrive this month will mark the end of the €1.79m scheme. Temporary pumps remain in situ until then and have withstood the wettest October on record.
Lenihan explained, “We’re essentially stopping the water from coming back up”. He said works were “95 percent complete”. The senior engineer in the project management office added, “The only incomplete element is the two pumps which will be in for good, they were ordered in April and we are expected to have them in December, it is a supply chain issue, we have two temporary pumps set up below which are being used as it is pending the permanent installation of the proper pumps, it is providing the protection to the areas as we speak”.
O’Callaghans Mills representative, Cllr Joe Cooney (FG) believed the current measures proved their worth, “we all saw what happened in the past with a number of houses badly flooded, I believe pumps working now and water pumped out”.
Suffering for residents in Clonlara has been allieviated, Cllr Pat O’Gorman (FF) maintained. “It wasn’t wellingtons they wanted it was whares,” the Cratloe councillor commented. Chair of the SPC, Cllr John Crowe (FG) said the works were “badly needed”.
Updating members of the Shannon Municipal District, acting senior executive officer, Anne Griffin detailed that the Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Patrick O’Donovan (FG) recently visited the site to see the level of progress and expressed his satisfaction with the job to date. “We as a Municipal District will be ready in the event of something happening down the line,” she said.
Cllr Michael Begley (IND) who recently received a tour of the site viewed it as “a very successful trial of the operation considering the bad weather leading up to it, there has been plenty of water to pump out”.
