Irish Water work continuing in Cavan
Irish Water is continuing to work on the Kingscourt Water Treatment Plant in Cavan, the only Cavan water supply on the EPA’s RAL, to secure high quality reliable drinking water for over 2,793 people.
As the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) publishes their Remedial Action List (RAL), Irish Water can confirm that they are investing in on-going projects to tackle different risks to the water supply for the residents of Cavan.
Irish Water has adopted a national Asset Management approach to drinking water safety which recognises the complex nature of the service and the need for an integrated programme involving investment, planned maintenance, and standard operation with appropriate automation and monitoring as necessary to upgrade water supplies in Ireland to international standards. While ultimately requiring investment of over €2 billion in drinking water production and distribution by 2021, significant improvement is being achieved year on year by this approach, including in Cavan.
The RAL subdivides different risks to the water supply and Irish Water is working hard in Cavan to bring those individual water supplies off the RAL and ensure a safe, secure and reliable water supply.
In Cavan there are no full or partial boil water notices in place or no water supplies on the RAL due to cryptosporidium and THM risks. Cryptosporidium is a very real threat to the water supply if the proper barriers are not in place. THMs, or Trihalomethanes are chemicals formed by the reaction of naturally occurring dissolved organic material and chlorine which is used for disinfection in order to protect against pathogenic bacteria.
The only water supply on the RAL is the Kingscourt Water Treatment Plant. Irish Water is investing €3 million for the construction of a new water treatment plant. The contract includes a new storage reservoir at the existing Kingscourt Water Treatment Plant site. An off- site well will also be developed at Descart, Co Monaghan which will supply raw water to the new water treatment plant to provide security of supply to the water supply scheme.
Speaking about the RAL and the ongoing work in Cavan, Irish Water’s Head of Asset Management Sean Laffey said: “Irish Water take the provision of high quality, safe and secure water for the people of Cavan very seriously. As a single utility we are able to adopt a single national best practice approach to assessing and managing water supplies for the benefit of the people of Cavan. The work Irish Water is undertaking in Cavan is based on the recommended World Health Organisation (WHO) approach to safe drinking water supply using a ‘source to tap’ risk based methodology which analyses risk rather than waiting for sampling failures.
“The most often cited challenge on the RAL is the level of THMs in the drinking water. Irish Water has put in place the first national THM plan and a prioritised programme of investment to address all inadequacies in drinking water parameters including THMs. By 2021 we plan to reduce the number of schemes on the EPA Remedial Action List to zero with an investment of €327 million to upgrade water supplies at risk from THMs.
“As a single utility Irish Water is able to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of Ireland’s drinking water production plants and where serious compliance challenges are found we can tackle them more effectively and efficiently.”