Bringing Fresh Water to Dublin.

Xenophile

In the case of not bringing good clean water to where industry is, consider bringing good clean water from the river Suir east of Clonmel. The river is supplied by five mountain ranges.

1 Rises in the Silvermines Mountains.

2 The Galtee Mountains streams from this mountain flow from the east and the west into the Suir.

3 The Kockmealdown Mountains supply the River Tar which is a tributary of the Suir.

4 The Comeragh Mountains supply it by way of many fresh stream for many kilometers.

5 The River Anner rises on Slievenamon and flows into the Suir five kilometers east of Clonmel



http://www.geograph.ie/photo/809409


Of course it would be much more intelligent to establish communities and industry near fresh water. Dublin has outgrown itself and nature has told us this a very long time ago.

By the way Bulmers Cider and Merck Sharpe and Dohme have manufacturing plants three kilometers to the east and west from where this photo was taken.

Victor

Water infrastructure isn't the only thing that is needed by industry.

murphaph

Indeed Victor, industry also needs well, people and people live in large quantities in cities. OP: Are you suggesting that the Romans were wrong to build all those aqueducts and that Rome should never have been allowed to grow?

Xenophile

Victor wrote: »

Water infrastructure isn't the only thing that is needed by industry.

I have heard it said that one day water may become more valuable than oil. We in South Tipperary will be in a position to sell it to you.

As regards people, many of our best people go to Dublin and do quite well there.

A by the way issue, as I take the train to Heuston station in Dublin from time to time, I am delighted to see what is termed as "urban sprawl". I am just so glad that people in new housing estates do have to live on top of each other in concrete towers............it is wonderful to have a garden to play in or to grow a few veggies in.

Xenophile

murphaph wrote: »

Indeed Victor, industry also needs well, people and people live in large quantities in cities. OP: Are you suggesting that the Romans were wrong to build all those aqueducts and that Rome should never have been allowed to grow?

Thanks for bringing the Roman aqueducts to my attention. I find the page in Wiki on these very interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_aqueduct

As regards your question as to the extent Rome should have been allowed to grow to, I am not well informed enough to be in a position to answer this question.

robd

There's already and extensive plan for investment in extra water capacity for Dublin

http://www.dublincity.ie/WaterWasteEnvironment/WaterSupplyProjectDublinRegion/WaterSupplyProjectDublinRegion/Documents/The%20Plan.pdf

Tapping from the Suir doesn't make a huge amount of sense. You'd have to cross both the Nore and the Barrow to get to Dublin. Would make more sense to tap either of them first. However, supply from any river is seasonal and limited capacity. Barrow has already been tapped (came on line during Summer 2013) for use in Kildare, to alleviate reliance on supply from an over stretched Dublin supply. One of the rejected proposals in plan is to seasonally abstract water from Barrow to Pollaphuca reservoir. I guess they could add Nore and then Suir as needs arose also.

Xenophile

If it is good clean water people are looking for, look to the Suir it's the fastest flowing river in Ireland flowing as it does at the foot of all the mountains that I listed in my opening post.

robd

Xenophile wrote: »

If it is good clean water people are looking for, look to the Suir it's the fastest flowing river in Ireland flowing as it does at the foot of all the mountains that I listed in my opening post.

It's a river though. Not sure what you know about rivers but as a user of most of Irelands rivers; Liffey, Boyne, Barrow, Nore mainly, they are very seasonal. Not much flow in summer. You can't just tap a river like that. Hence why dams are built or lakes are tapped, to create storage for a constant tapping.

It all comes down to cost also at the end of the day.

Top of Lough Derg (near Portumna) where they are proposing to tap the Shannon offers a considerably better solution (it's a massive lake) and is about the same distance from Dublin as River Suir (Thurles).

The report is an export level report into water for Dublin. I think this report is a rather definitive look into the problem, so unless you are an expert.

flazio

Could the Canals be used as Aqueducts fom the Shannon to the City?

murphaph

flazio wrote: »

Could the Canals be used as Aqueducts fom the Shannon to the City?

I'm not a civil engineer but I'd say no. The reason being that the canals rise and fall (using locks) between Dublin and the Shannon. There will be a high point along the canals which must be fed from somewhere even higher! They are in fact fed along the way with small rivers that are damned up to form artificial lakes designed to catch rainwater and feed the canal summit. No water flows from the Shannon to Dublin or vice versa. Water flows from the summit of the particular canal to the Shannon and Dublin.

murphaph

Xenophile wrote: »

If it is good clean water people are looking for, look to the Suir it's the fastest flowing river in Ireland flowing as it does at the foot of all the mountains that I listed in my opening post.

The water has to be treated anyway before being piped to homes, so it doesn't matter so long as it's reasonably clean to begin with. Even the Suir could become contaminated with effluent etc. so treatment is not optional and of course to tap of the Suir you'd have to damn it and form a reservoir, so there goes the fast flowing river out the window!

flazio

Thanks murphaph, Still though, the canal routes could IMO be considered as the pipeline routes. Would cause minimal disruption and no real need for any CPOs as Waterways Ireland are already a state agency. (Well a North/South agency but still) Rise and fall of the land is going to happen anyway so why not use some infrastructural routes already in place?

murphaph

I suppose because the canals are in use and can't be commandeered for pipelines. The towpaths can't be used for obvious reasons so the only place to put a pipeline would be under the bed of the canal, which would mean draining the canal in sections but also massive works to ALL the locks. It'd probably be easier just to lay the pipe like all our other long pipelines, across fields underground.

I'd imagine a pipe buried under a canal is also a maintenance nightmare.

robd

flazio wrote: »

Thanks murphaph, Still though, the canal routes could IMO be considered as the pipeline routes. Would cause minimal disruption and no real need for any CPOs as Waterways Ireland are already a state agency. (Well a North/South agency but still) Rise and fall of the land is going to happen anyway so why not use some infrastructural routes already in place?

No they couldn't.

The flow rate on a canal is minimal. Water generally doesn't flow in the one direction on a canal. They are fed by rivers and flow down the locks from a high point to a low point at which the water flows back out to a river. The highest point on the Grand Canal (for example) is Robertstown. It flows downhill in both directions from here.

Also think of what a river is. It's natures way of water flowing from a high point to a low point through the least path of resistance. Thus the Shannon can't flow East up through the midlands though a canal to Dublin. It would be going up hill.

Most canals also have protection/preservation orders on them these days, which would make it impossible to use for commercial water carrying.

Xenophile

murphaph wrote: »

The water has to be treated anyway before being piped to homes, so it doesn't matter so long as it's reasonably clean to begin with. Even the Suir could become contaminated with effluent etc. so treatment is not optional and of course to tap of the Suir you'd have to damn it and form a reservoir, so there goes the fast flowing river out the window!

The fast flowing river means it would not need as much treatment as the murky waters from the Shannon.

Carawaystick

The royal canal supplied water to Dublin, when it was built, it's all downhill from Lough Owel to Blessington st basin
Flow rate might not be suitable now we've got flushing toilets and the like though

What is the capacity of the storage reservoir they're planning to build on BnaM land relative to Blessington lake ?

notharrypotter

The cunning plan linked in post 6 makes interesting reading.

Pages 22/23 give the 3 options considered.

When the time comes money will out; so options 2 and 3 are not at the races.

The head waters of Suir lack critical volume while from Clonmel on is tidal so is not consistent either.

Where as the lakes on the Shannon have the critical mass needed.
Looking at the way its worded they will to use the Board Na Mona bog as a storage depot.

Options A - F have the potential to supply treated water to Local Authorities en route between the

Shannon and Dublin.

This will result in a political buy in by politicos along the route so will come to pass.

flazio

I didn't mean use the water in the canal, I meant, laying the high pressure pipes along the route of the canals.
Look I'm not any sort of engineer so I withdraw the suggestion.

robp

Xenophile wrote: »

The fast flowing river means it would not need as much treatment as the murky waters from the Shannon.

The Suir is by now means super pure. Intensive farming occurs on much of the catchment leaving it vulnerable to pollution. Most of the murkiness in river water is due to suspended clay particles which entirely goes if left motionless for 24 hours.

dloob

Xenophile wrote: »

The fast flowing river means it would not need as much treatment as the murky waters from the Shannon.

It's not very fast flowing though Thurles in the summer when it tends to get choked with weeds as well.

Xenophile

dloob wrote: »

It's not very fast flowing though Thurles in the summer when it tends to get choked with weeds as well.

Don't take the water until it has passed under the mountains that I mentioned!