*Photograph: John Mangan
ENNISTYMON’s treatment plant continue to operate at fifty five percent above its design capacity while county councillors have been urged to follow through on commitments to visit the sites operated by Uisce Éireann in the locality.
As North Clare continues to experience discoloured water with issues persisting regarding its taste and odour, poor management and an absence of operational control of the Ennistymon treatment plant has been flagged by the EPA in a damning audit. The plant was found to be operating at approximately 55% above its design capacity and under significant pressure
The audit found poor management and an absence of operational control of the sludge treatment processes at the plant. The main findings include a lack of alarms to alert plant operators to any malfunction of the sludge treatment process, lack of adequate storage and settlement capacity for sludge treatment, lack of maintenance of sludge treatment equipment and insufficient frequency of sludge removal off site.
Ennistymon’s public water supply serves a population of 6,703 and produces 6,083 m3/day of treated water. Raw water is abstracted from Lickeen Lough, located approximately two kilometres from the plant. Treatment includes coagulation, flocculation, clarification, pH correction, filtration, disinfection and fluoridation. There is sludge treatment on-site, consisting of two picket fence thickeners (PFTs) and dewatering units. At the audit it was noted that both PFTs were not in operation due to mechanical failures.
Following an inspection last June, Clare County Council stated that the filter media was last replenished in 2013 and could not confirm the media depth in the filters. Filters at the plant are not designed and managed in accordance with EPA guidance. The audit found that suitable monitoring frequency for residual chlorine in the network with records is not available.
Suitable plant shutdowns and inhibits are not in place to prevent the entry of inadequately treated water entering the distribution network. There is currently no automatic shutdown of the water going into supply linked to elevated turbidity. There is a shutdown on low chlorine of 0.2 mg/l which is too low to ensure adequately disinfected water at all times. This setting did not match the minimum free chlorine required at the contact time validation point, specified as 0.4 mg/l in the chlorine contact time calculation.
Sludge arising from the treatment processes is also not adequately managed, the audit found.
Under the audit, Uisce Éireann were recommended to review current methods of handling and disposal of water treatment sludge to ensure the practice is not in contravention of the Waste Management Act, 1996 – 2012 and for the discharge of water treatment sludge to receiving water to cease immediately.
Speaking to The Clare Echo, Lahinch’s Liam Grant stressed the need for his former colleagues on Clare County Council to follow through on his last motion to the West Clare Municipal District before losing his seat in June. “My last motion as a councillor was for Uisce Éireann to give a tour of their facilities in North Clare to the now sitting councillors so the treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants. I’ve visited the water treatment plant unannounced so I’ve seen how bad it is, I have asked Clare County Council to arrange it with Uisce Éireann, they have asked Uisce Éireann, I am obviously no longer a sitting councillor but I would be happy for our councillors to see the plants. It is paramount that the current councillors do go and visit the treatment plant and find out what is going on”.
An earth and ocean science graduate, Liam referred to the algae bloom at Lickeen Lake. He explained, “this tends to happen when you get a lot of nitrogen phosporous coming into the lake making it nutrient rich and causing an algae bloom which has a lot of different effects and also takes a lot of oxygen out of the lake which kills a lot of animals and something similar has been happening in Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland for quite some time, they get a lot of algae blooms and it is very damaging for the water and I do think it has a lot to do with agricultural pressure as a run-off particularly with all the rain recently and all the run-off from the land bringing nutrients from the land that is making it bloom, I think it is something that we need to look at and how it affects our drinking water quality and also the inability of our water infrastructure to treat that properly and deal with it”.
