Sewage Treatment Infrastructure

ForiegnNational

Not a subject on which many of us dwell, but does anybody know if there are plans to roll out sewage treatment plants to all of the places the currently dispose directly into the sea?

Both Clonakilty and Courtmacsherry have seen massive seaweed blooms this year due to the huge amount of fresh (human) fertilizer in the sea. Courtmacsherry beach is now dinuded of visitors as it plain and simply stinks in the wrong conditions.

I am surprised that after the whole Galway Water debacle, we have not heard anything further on water and waste treatments.

Unfortunately, the planners never made it a prerequiste of the developers of all the new coastal housing to put in an adequate infrastructure to cope with all the new housing and it will now be impossible to retrospectively enforce any requirements for such on them.

I know this thread crosses the green-issues / infrastructure boundary, but think that water and waste are as important as roads, rails and electricity as infrastructure projects.

dubhthach

ForiegnNational wrote: »

Not a subject on which many of us dwell, but does anybody know if there are plans to roll out sewage treatment plants to all of the places the currently dispose directly into the sea?

Both Clonakilty and Courtmacsherry have seen massive seaweed blooms this year due to the huge amount of fresh (human) fertilizer in the sea. Courtmacsherry beach is now dinuded of visitors as it plain and simply stinks in the wrong conditions.

I am surprised that after the whole Galway Water debacle, we have not heard anything further on water and waste treatments.

Unfortunately, the planners never made it a prerequiste of the developers of all the new coastal housing to put in an adequate infrastructure to cope with all the new housing and it will now be impossible to retrospectively enforce any requirements for such on them.

I know this thread crosses the green-issues / infrastructure boundary, but think that water and waste are as important as roads, rails and electricity as infrastructure projects.

In many ways the problem in Galway is there is way too much one off housing in the Lough Corrib catchment area. The ground is very porous limestone and with the huge amount of septic tanks in the area it's no wonder that they Crypto got to such a level in the lake.

Zube

dubhthach wrote: »

In many ways the problem in Galway is there is way too much one off housing in the Lough Corrib catchment area.

I think the problem is more that Oughterard has an ancient, overloaded plant emptying into the lake.

Carawaystick

I'll tell ye a little story about Arklow.
Back in the mists of time, it was decided that there would be a treatment plant built about 3km north of the town.
Between Ferrybank and Seabank in the centre of this. The dark line is a river, it was to be north of this.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=52.808676,-6.13183&spn=0.053336,0.165482&t=h&z=13

certain local representatives campaigned against siting the plant there on a Nimby platform. There were also a strong campaign against bypassing the town by certain local representatives and local shop owners who feared they would loose trade from the people stuck in 6km tailbacks. :rolleyes:
The landowner of land near where the treatment plant was to be located took a high court and eventually a supreme court case to prevent the building of the plant. The Supremes decided against him last year or the year before but referred something back to the high court.
The main public representative above was voted in to the AUDC in the local election in (I'm not sure exactly) 1985.

So today, raw sewage flows into the Avoca above and below the Nineteen Arches bridge.

Not to absolve the govt of any blame, the scheme approved by the Supremes was a primary treatment plant, which was a good idea in 1985, but probably not the best thing to be built in 2010. Also what should have happened is in the arial photo at the river mouth on the north side of the river is a closed down industrial wasteland, with no residents and a lot less sewerage to be constructed. Or even re-route the sewerage to pour into an outfall out at sea, not the river.
The dept of Environment have stated that they would not fund any improvement to the town's water supply until the sewage situation was improved.
When I was a lad, there were regularly live creatures in the mains water. Most of the new estates built in recent years have had to drill their own wells and supply untreated water from them.

In other news we're keeping bankrupt banks afloat and paying loadsamoney to their shareholders.