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Shannon supplying water to Dublin?

silverharp

In the usual half hearted way that RTE report on anything thats half way interesting, they did a piece last week that Dublin needs more water and that desalination is not an option, well duh! anyway it went quickly on to objections about using water from the Shannon without really analysing it. Assuming from an engeneering perspective that its the most reasonable solution, what are the objections based on? it came across as being "down with that sort of thing!"
Are there any potential benefits in relation to flood mitigation?

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Drummerboy2

silverharp wrote: »

In the usual half hearted way that RTE report on anything thats half way interesting, they did a piece last week that Dublin needs more water and that desalination is not an option, well duh! anyway it went quickly on to objections about using water from the Shannon without really analysing it. Assuming from an engeneering perspective that its the most reasonable solution, what are the objections based on? it came across as being "down with that sort of thing!"
Are there any potential benefits in relation to flood mitigation?

Its only a few months ago the locals along the banks of the Shannon who were flooded were complaining about the height of the water in the river. They blamed the ESB. Surely sending this surplus water to Dublin would be an ideal solution for both the locals and the reservoir's of Dublin.

Zoney

drummerboy2,

Great, except the time Dublin needs water most is in the summer, when everywhere else does too!

The problem would not have arisen if the government had made it sufficiently attractive for businesses to invest in the regional cities such that emigration to Dublin could be halted. There isn't a lot the regional authorities can do about a lack of government regulation and investment in telecoms, power and transport infrastructure (interurban motorways should have been finished by 2006 - there remains a vast amount of road building and public transport investment to get our country remotely up to scratch on transport).

Dublin is a disaster of a city, it clearly would have cost the state less overall to have less development in Dublin and more in the regions (any short-term extra investment in the regions would more than be made up for by improved long term economic returns from them, as well as less costly investment needed for a smaller Dublin). Now we are trying to sort out a poorly planned and sprawling city and pay for underdeveloped regions as well! The response of some commentators on forums etc. seems to be to suggest a totalitarian approach where everyone else is forced through poverty to abandon the regions too and state funding goes primarily to Dublin.

dubhthach

Drummerboy2 wrote: »

Its only a few months ago the locals along the banks of the Shannon who were flooded were complaining about the height of the water in the river. They blamed the ESB. Surely sending this surplus water to Dublin would be an ideal solution for both the locals and the reservoir's of Dublin.

Indeed wasn't there not a campaign for years to "Drain the Shannon" of course tbh most problems with flooding in Ireland is due to uncontrolled development in unsuitable locations. "Oh yes please build your ribbon development in the flood plain".

As for the proposal. I recall my sister did a final year project in her Civil Engineering degree back in 99 or 2000 regarding piping water from upper Shannon to Dublin. I wonder if she still has a copy.

Sponge Bob

dubhthach wrote: »

I recall my sister did a final year project in her Civil Engineering degree back in 99 or 2000 regarding piping water from upper Shannon to Dublin. I wonder if she still has a copy.

Now there is a reason to build the N4 From Carrick on Shannon to Mullingar

silverharp

Zoney wrote: »

drummerboy2,

The problem would not have arisen if the government had made it sufficiently attractive for businesses to invest in the regional cities such that emigration to Dublin could be halted. There isn't a lot the regional authorities can do about a lack of government regulation and investment in telecoms, power and transport infrastructure (interurban motorways should have been finished by 2006 - there remains a vast amount of road building and public transport investment to get our country remotely up to scratch on transport).

Dublin is a disaster of a city, it clearly would have cost the state less overall to have less development in Dublin and more in the regions (any short-term extra investment in the regions would more than be made up for by improved long term economic returns from them, as well as less costly investment needed for a smaller Dublin). Now we are trying to sort out a poorly planned and sprawling city and pay for underdeveloped regions as well! The response of some commentators on forums etc. seems to be to suggest a totalitarian approach where everyone else is forced through poverty to abandon the regions too and state funding goes primarily to Dublin.

I'd take the other side of that. It would be better if people and business went where they wanted to go instead of the economy being run by local politics using pseudo economics to justify transferring billions of taxpayers money for dubious projects and corporate welfare. Like it or not a country with 4 million is likely to only have 1 or 2 real cities and trying to "fight" it is self defeating.
If Dublin is a disaster its down to a planning system that doesnt add value and our "socialist" live where you like provision of infrastructure.

Zoney wrote: »

Great, except the time Dublin needs water most is in the summer, when everywhere else does too!

I guess this year showed it matters in the winter too. Does it imply some resevoirs being built along the way as well ?

dubhthach

you wonder how much water usage would reduce if they had gotten the finger out and fixed the pipes/water metering/charges. From what I recall they loose over 30% of water through leaking pipes.

Sponge Bob

dubhthach wrote: »

you wonder how much water usage would reduce if they had gotten the finger out and fixed the pipes/water metering/charges. From what I recall they loose over 30% of water through leaking pipes.

There are parts of Galway where the loss is over 60% and the council never requested fuinding to fix these leaks and now cannot request more funds until 2013.

Every other council is similarly precluded by Green Gormley from requesting these funds too.

If a network starts pissing treated water, as happens on occasion, it is not smart and green to fix it , according to Gormley.

SeanW

+1 to the above 3 posts.

Ireland needs 1, maybe 2, main cities. There are many types of business that are attracted to cities. Business that we need. Other cities have many more people and function much better. Dublin isn't "too big" or anything like that, only appearing that way to regional whingers lobbies.

Who in turn are part of the problem, they did things like hamper the development and operation of Dublin Airport (it has a runway length of only 2.637km, shortest of any main runway of any main airport of any capital city in Europe (and this was a deliberate decision at the behest of the Shannon lobbies) among other mistakes) in a group of policies that are, nationally speaking, cutting your nose off to spite your face.

As to the question of Dublin taking water from the Shannon, I think that without the existing pipework being fixed, it's a bit pointless to add 70 miles more pipes and resivoirs when fully 1/3 of the supply is going to be lost.

Sponge Bob

I think the question is , were we to reduce water losses to 20% would we then need a Shannon extraction scheme sooner or later. I think we will need it sooner. Dublin water losses are around 20% now where they were 30% 10 years ago and it will be very costly to reduce that by much more in future with severely diminishing marginal returns.

Cheaper to get water elsewhere. Dont forget that Birmingham gets most of its water 100 miles away near the coast of Wales and has done since the 19th century.

The Boyne catchment is also stressed by the commuter belt and may need summer topups too.

Anyway the state now owns half of Leitrim through Nama and needs to find a use for its 'investment'

But for now we need to get Gormley to agree to PRINCIPLES based network management where we deal with the 60% losses and then the 50% plus and then the 40% plus etc. The cost of processing water is roughly the same nationally and the losses are easily converted into €€€s.

Aidan1

Does it imply some resevoirs being built along the way as well ?

Yes - the current plan involves the creation of a significant 'artificial lake' (read reservoir on a spent Bord na Mona bog in Co. Kildare. This will allow the water to be taken from the Shannon when water levels are high, and stored in the reservoir until needed.

Spongebob - wasn't there an announcement recently on capital works to renew water mains? I think its safe to say that people are fully aware of the need to remedy the leak problem - sustaining pressure in a leaky system is also a fairly serious component of energy demand. However, it doesn't matter if your policy is based on PRINCIPLES or VOODOO, iif you can't pay for it, its all ACADEMIC

Sponge Bob

Aidan1 wrote: »

Spongebob - wasn't there an announcement recently on capital works to renew water mains?

Plenty of announcements. This was the main one. Very little of this money has been disbursed. Remember that the savings when you plug rampant leaks start to pay for themselves from day one.

http://www.environ.ie/en/Environment/Water/WaterServices/News/MainBody,22736,en.htm

The Programme provides for investment of some €320 million in network rehabilitation alone – a doubling of expenditure is this area over the past 7 years.

http://www.environ.ie/en/Environment/Water/WaterServices/WaterServicesInvestmentProgramme/#Latest%20Investment%20Programme:%20Water%20Services%20Investment%20Programme%202010%20-%202012

This level of funding should allow for the rehabilitation of some 640km of water mains, which is almost 3% of the national public network. Funding is particularly targeted at areas where the level of unaccounted for water is unacceptably high.

But many areas were left out, over half of Galway and half of Mayo and half of Roscommon were not considered for this programme despite their having hotspots where losses were known to be enormous and water quality suspect because of leaks.

These are not itemised by Gormley but are called "conservation works" in each countys overall allocation bar in Offaly where the individual conservation schemes are broken out.

Stage 1 Conservation is the installation of metering and flow control measurements and mapping the pipes Stage 2 conservation is actually fixing the leaks. Stage 3 is wholesale replacement where 1 and 2 were a failure. There are no stage 1 or 2 conservation projects in the Dublin area because Dublin and Wicklow were funded to complete both of these stages by 2007 ...unlike the rest of the country.

Having done so (and failed) they need to move to stage 3 and/or drain the Shannon

http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/Environment/Water/FileDownLoad,23037,en.pdf

Jayuu

dubhthach wrote: »

you wonder how much water usage would reduce if they had gotten the finger out and fixed the pipes/water metering/charges. From what I recall they loose over 30% of water through leaking pipes.

+1

The amount of wasted water is nothing short of a national scandal. Fixing and replacing outdated pipes would surely not only be a good way of creating employment but also be kinder to the environment. Fresh drinkable water is becomming an increasingly more scare and valuable resource. We should be acting now to preserve our supply. But no, our reaction is to throw more water at the problem.

Reminds me of when the Millennium Clock was put in the Liffey and you couldn't see it clearly because the river was too dirty. The suggested solution was to make the display brighter. Nobody ever suggested trying to make the river cleaner! :rolleyes:

silverharp

Aidan1 wrote: »

Yes - the current plan involves the creation of a significant 'artificial lake' (read reservoir on a spent Bord na Mona bog in Co. Kildare. This will allow the water to be taken from the Shannon when water levels are high, and stored in the reservoir until needed.

seems like win win, so if a wetter than normal winter was on the cards, the "lake" could be drained and left ready to be filled at short notice?

As for the pipes issue seems like typical behaviour of state run companies. It would have been better to privatise the network and have had the meters installed a decade ago. Can you imagine how great our telephone networks were if they were "free"

L1011

silverharp wrote: »

As for the pipes issue seems like typical behaviour of state run companies. It would have been better to privatise the network and have had the meters installed a decade ago. Can you imagine how great our telephone networks were if they were "free"

Ironically our phone network was fantastic when Telecom was state owned, as they had massive profits from callsand no ability to spend them on anything else. ISDN in every backwater, etc. It was only when it was privatised that they stopped spending anything.

Sponge Bob

And now we pay the highest monthly line rental in the whole world for the worst network in Western Europe.

Bluetonic

Jayuu wrote: »

Fixing and replacing outdated pipes would surely not only be a good way of creating employment but also be kinder to the environment.

Do you have any idea of how expensive this would be and how long it would take? Then consider the disruption involved to both water services and streets as they are dug up.

It's a lovely thought but just not practical.

Jayuu

Bluetonic wrote: »

Do you have any idea of how expensive this would be and how long it would take? Then consider the disruption involved to both water services and streets as they are dug up.

It's a lovely thought but just not practical.

I'm going to disagree with you on this. Nobody is saying that its going to be easy or even that cheap but in the longer term its probably going to be necessary one way of the other to address this infrastructural deficit.

This is symptomatic of the approach taken to issues in Ireland. We don't try to be pro-active in any way. We just wait for the crisis to happen and then spend more money on trying to catch up, which we never really do. Metering is going to be introduced in the next while which probably will dampen down some of the demand here as people have to pay for their usage but eventually demand will grow again and we should be preparing for that point.

Until recently I worked for a pension management company who specialise in the sale of environmental products. All of the research they and other similar companies have done show that clean water is going to be one of the scarcest resources in the 21st century because of growing demand and potential climate change. Ireland is lucky in this regard because of our location but we can see that even here it only takes one severe bout of extreme weather to thrown our water system into chaos.

silverharp

Jayuu wrote: »

I'm going to disagree with you on this. Nobody is saying that its going to be easy or even that cheap but in the longer term its probably going to be necessary one way of the other to address this infrastructural deficit.

This is symptomatic of the approach taken to issues in Ireland. We don't try to be pro-active in any way. We just wait for the crisis to happen and then spend more money on trying to catch up, which we never really do. Metering is going to be introduced in the next while which probably will dampen down some of the demand here as people have to pay for their usage but eventually demand will grow again and we should be preparing for that point.

indeed, when it comes down to it, people will happily shell out up €1,000 on TV , mobile and internet connections which are far less important then clean water. The problem is people expect water to be free and available at pressure 24/7. if the government cant figure out how to maintian the system in preference to decentralisation and the other gimmicks, will they please sell the network and let private companies run it.
Unless its cheaper to deliver water by truck (and I doubt it) , the cost of living in an older city is to gradually have the entire infrastructure replaced every 30 to 50 years or so.

Seperate question, in any newer cities (around the world), are the pipes layed in a way that they can be got at without digging up the road. either in tunnels or that the road surface can be lifted in some way?

D'Peoples Voice

Jayuu wrote: »

This is symptomatic of the approach taken to issues in Ireland. We don't try to be pro-active in any way. We just wait for the crisis to happen and then spend more money on trying to catch up, which we never really do. Metering is going to be introduced in the next while which probably will dampen down some of the demand here as people have to pay for their usage but eventually demand will grow again and we should be preparing for that point.

I think its worth noting that Irish people use expensively treated drinking water in their

showers

radiators for central heating

washing their car

flushing the toilet

hosing their lawn

washing machine

dishwashers

putting out fires(fire brigade)

roadsweepers

washing windows, moping floors, general washing
I can't but think that it might be cheaper in the LONG run to connect a second pipe to everyone's house, whereby cheap untreated rain water could be used for many of the above services:rolleyes:

bacon&cabbage

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

I can't but think that it might be cheaper in the LONG run to connect a second pipe to everyone's house, whereby cheap untreated rain water could be used for many of the above services:rolleyes:

Kingspan were trying to sell this the last time water shortages were in the media

http://www.kingspanwater.com/domestic_rainwater_harvesting.htm

Carawaystick

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

I think its worth noting that Irish people use expensively treated drinking water in their
showers
radiators for central heating
washing their car
flushing the toilet
hosing their lawn
washing machine
dishwashers
putting out fires(fire brigade)
roadsweepers
washing windows, moping floors, general washing

I can't but think that it might be cheaper in the LONG run to connect a second pipe to everyone's house, whereby cheap untreated rain water could be used for many of the above services:rolleyes:

While I think the point about using untreated water is a good one, I'd say that horse has bolted now.

It's definitely madness to use potable water for the toilet.

However, I'd be wary of using untreated water for showering or washing dishes, and I'd imagine the amount of water used in radiators each year per household is so small as to be pointless.

serfboard

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

I think its worth noting that Irish people use expensively treated drinking water in their
showers
radiators for central heating
washing their car
flushing the toilet
hosing their lawn
washing machine
dishwashers
putting out fires(fire brigade)
roadsweepers
washing windows, moping floors, general washing

I can't but think that it might be cheaper in the LONG run to connect a second pipe to everyone's house, whereby cheap untreated rain water could be used for many of the above services:rolleyes:

Agree with you about this, I think we should be using more rainwater harvesting systems in this country, since in normal years we have more than enough.

Bluetonic

Jayuu wrote: »

I'm going to disagree with you on this. Nobody is saying that its going to be easy or even that cheap but in the longer term its probably going to be necessary one way of the other to address this infrastructural deficit.

Whats the cost of fixing the leaks along with the cost of disruption?

Would you be happy to pay this via smart water metering and charges on your domestic tap?

Sponge Bob

This has gone a bit further than I thought

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0720/1224275074682.html

A 500-ACRE bog in Co Offaly has been chosen as the proposed site for an “eco water park and reservoir” as part of Dublin City Council’s plan to pump water from the river Shannon.

The council is proposing a €540 million, Government-funded project which would supply 350 million litres of water a day to the Dublin region. The council says the project would also supply water to residents and businesses in Meath, Wicklow, Kildare, Offaly and Westmeath.

So it is a Boyne and Liffey catchment supply booster, I thought so.

The article then descents into typical green spin doctor eco bullmanure

The council says the project would also supply water to residents and businesses in Meath, Wicklow, Kildare, Offaly and Westmeath. In a statement yesterday, the council said the project would create an “innovative water based eco-park with fishing, boating, cycling, water and leisure sports” in the midlands It said 1,000 construction jobs would be created alongside an unspecified number of long-term tourism and recreation jobs in the midlands.

The only thing missing is water bicycles for Gormley and Ryan

Once the green eco bollix has been regurgitated we get back to some facts.

Consultants for the council, RPS and Veolia Water, envisage the water being taken from the Shannon at Lough Derg during periods of flood and high flows only The water would be stored at the new “eco park” at Garryhinch Bog, from where it could be pumped to Dublin or even back to the Shannon to be used during periods of low flows, according to the consultants.

It is not an eco park you green morons, it is a reservoir. It will be a few miles north of Mountmellick just inside Offaly. You can see the proposed location as a sizeable brown stain HERE on Google Maps , around 4 miles west of Portarlington.

Mind you I don't think this can be very deep somehow. 500 acres times a feasible 6 metres deep is around 12m cubic metres. That is near enough what the London Underground alone pumps out of its network every year to stop it from flooding

350m litres times 365 days is around 12.8m cubic metres . Near enough.

I shall be along for the bog cotton planting any day you green fuks

nilhg

I see Bord na Mona want to build a reservoir between Mountmellick and Portarlington to hold water pumped out of the Shannon during flood periods for storage and eventual use in the midlands and Dublin regions, it'll also be, according to them, a significant leisure amenity for the area.

The flyer is here

Sponge Bob

There is an abandoned branch of the Grand Canal just south of the reservoir that once ran from Mountmellick to Monasterevin.

JupiterKid

One issue that hasn't really been raised here is that abstracting water from the River Shannon to satisfy Dublin's thirst could seriously affect navigation levels on the Shannon, especially along the shallow stretches of the river between Roosky and Lough Ree.

Just the past May and early June, water levels were so low that many cruisers ran aground on the river, especially in the Lough Forbes area.:(

The IWAI (Inland Waterways Association of Ireland) and many tourist and boating/fishing groups along the Shannon are very concerned about the water proposals.

Pete_Cavan

JupiterKid wrote: »

One issue that hasn't really been raised here is that abstracting water from the River Shannon to satisfy Dublin's thirst could seriously affect navigation levels on the Shannon, especially along the shallow stretches of the river between Roosky and Lough Ree.

Just the past May and early June, water levels were so low that many cruisers ran aground on the river, especially in the Lough Forbes area.:(

The IWAI (Inland Waterways Association of Ireland) and many tourist and boating/fishing groups along the Shannon are very concerned about the water proposals.

The proposal is to take the water from Lough Derg, which is down stream of the areas you are talking about so am I right in thinking it wouldnt effect them?

nilhg

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The proposal is to take the water from Lough Derg, which is down stream of the areas you are talking about so am I right in thinking it wouldnt effect them?

And to take it only when the river is in flood and store it in the proposed reservoir at Garryhinch.

JupiterKid

The proposal is to take the water from Lough Derg, which is down stream of the areas you are talking about so am I right in thinking it wouldnt effect them?

Well, the original proposal was to abstract the water from Lough Ree, which is already a shallow lake. Taking the water from Lough Derg, which is quite deep in many places, makes more sense but the entire project will have to be thought through very carefully. Shannon navigation is vitally important for tourism in the Midlands region.

And I agree with the others who think its scandalous that there is such a high degree of water leakage from out existing water supply infrastructure., much of which is old and inefficient. We take water too much for granted in Ireland. Many countrie would gasp at the amount of water we waste.