Shannon Water Pipeline - Parteen to Dublin

blue5000 · 18-03-2016 12:04am #1

Does anyone know if this will definitely go ahead? If it does how big will the pipe be and how deep? Any proposed routes yet?

Thanks.

blue5000 · 30-03-2016 1:32am

Anyone?

Limerick Dude · 30-03-2016 10:31am

blue5000 wrote: »

Anyone?

Currently going through the planning process I believe.

http://www.watersupplyproject.ie/

hans aus dtschl · 07-04-2016 3:13pm

Forgive my ignorance of the topic, but since they'll have to purify the water regardless, would it not make more sense to simply purify water from the Irish sea? The cost of the extra purification would be offset by the need to maintain a whole network from the West to the East, and negotiate with so many stakeholders along the way?

Would be delighted to know any reasons I'm wrong on this, as it's far from my area of expertise.

I can see the above website has stated that the desalination is one of the options, but they decline to mention any of the negatives, only presenting the positives of the Parteen Basin option.

Alun · 07-04-2016 3:15pm

Desalination is a whole different process to purification, and much more costly.

hans aus dtschl · 07-04-2016 3:16pm

Alun wrote: »

Desalination is a whole different process to purification, and much more costly.

Thanks Alun, you reckon the cost factor is so significant as to be undesirable in this case?

Alun · 07-04-2016 3:23pm

I don't know any specifics about costs, but generally desalination plants are currently only used when there's really no option to take water from the ground in places like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as they're so expensive to run, with energy costs being a big factor, but of course that's pretty irrelevant in those countries.

Idbatterim · 07-04-2016 4:31pm

yeah I read desalination is very costly...

Alun · 07-04-2016 4:35pm

The old fashioned way of doing it is by distillation, which is of course pretty energy hungry, but again of no importance to the Saudi's etc. Newer methods use reverse osmosis which works well and is more energy efficient but doesn't really scale up to industrial scales as well, as I understand it.

Sam Russell · 18-04-2016 4:27pm

It looks like the plans are for moving clean water from the Shannon to Dublin. Would it be better to move the water before purification to Dublin and fill the reservoirs with it?

How big a pipe (diameter) are they talking about?

Alun · 18-04-2016 4:30pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

It looks like the plans are for moving clean water from the Shannon to Dublin. Would it be better to move the water before purification to Dublin and fill the reservoirs with it?

As I understand it there's also a problem with processing capacity at the two major reservoirs' purification plants, so this might relieve that to some degree, or at least give them some breathing space while they upgrade the existing facilities.

Mearings · 19-04-2016 8:28pm

Would this ease the flooding such as we have had this year?

ManAboutCouch · 21-04-2016 11:35am

Mearings wrote: »

Would this ease the flooding such as we have had this year?

In a word, no. As I understand it the capacity of the pipe is to be 4 cubic metres of water per second (cumecs). The current supply of water in Dublin is about 540 Million litres per day, which is 6.25 cumecs.

The average flow of the Shannon at Limerick is more than 200 cumecs, further upstream at Athlone it is around 100 cumecs. In times of flooding these numbers can treble or quadruple, so the pipleline would make very little difference.

db · 21-04-2016 2:32pm

It will make absolutely no impact in the flooding, except possibly make it worse. During normal water levels the majority of water on the Shannon is diverted via Ardnacrusha which has a capacity of 400 cumecs. There is a minimum flow of water through the old river of 10 cumecs and this would be the rate for the majority of the year as the ESB will take as much as possible up to the max. In February this year the rate through the river reached 470 cumecs.

Part of the reason the old river course is unable to handle the volume in a flood is due to the amount of vegetation that has grown in the river due to the low level of water 95% of the time. If the level in the river is reduced further to divert water to Dublin and keep the ESB happy, the river bed will become more overgrown than it is already and the next flood will be worse.

Carawaystick · 21-04-2016 4:49pm

db wrote: »

Part of the reason the old river course is unable to handle the volume in a flood is due to the amount of vegetation that has grown in the river due to the low level of water 95% of the time. If the level in the river is reduced further to divert water to Dublin and keep the ESB happy, the river bed will become more overgrown than it is already and the next flood will be worse.

Ah, that makes sense now about the flooding. So that floooding at Clonlara was from the main Shannon course flooding and being held in by the headrace canal?

db · 21-04-2016 5:00pm

This is a great explanation of how the canal and the river flow rates are managed. I live a couple of hundred yards from the river and it is not much more than a stream at the moment, as it is almost all the time.

prunudo · 08-11-2016 7:06pm

Considering its crossing half the country, effecting 500 landowners isn't that bad, although I'm sure they won't it that way.

Bray Head · 08-11-2016 8:13pm

Imagine you had a state agency with its own funding stream tasked with the provision of transport infrastructure, which didn't have to go near a politician to get approval for large projects........

hannible the cannible · 08-11-2016 8:23pm

I can see the farmers loving this , how much will it cost to pacify them into submission I wonder

gctest50 · 08-11-2016 8:31pm

hannible the cannible wrote: »

I can see the farmers loving this , how much will it cost to pacify them into submission I wonder

Compulsory purchase and a pair of dozers

Water John · 08-11-2016 8:33pm

This pipe like gas pipes etc. will mean disruption, loss of production for possibly 2 years. It will then have a wayleave attached to it.
It is a public utility for the public good. It thus is a balance of rights. A payment to those landowners is the correct mechanism.

funnyname · 08-11-2016 9:00pm

Throw in a greenway while they're at it

Bray Head · 08-11-2016 9:06pm

Water John wrote: »

This pipe like gas pipes etc. will mean disruption, loss of production for possibly 2 years. It will then have a wayleave attached to it.
It is a public utility for the public good. It thus is a balance of rights. A payment to those landowners is the correct mechanism.

I agree. The issue is that most of this land would be a fraction of its value if there were not large area-based payments coming from Brussels.
I wonder how much has been spent over the years on land acquisition costs which are compensation for loss of a subsidy?

Carawaystick · 09-11-2016 12:53pm

All our Natural Gas came into the facility just east of the Motorway at the centre here
There's 2 pipes in , and 3 out

And wayleaves associated for them.

There's the map of gas pipelines around the country, and there was no great outcry getting most of them built by the ifa or icmsa.

This is just the farmers trying to squeeze money

Sam Russell · 09-11-2016 1:49pm

Why could the new pipeline not follow the route of one of the gas lines?

(for at least some of the distance)

Alun · 09-11-2016 1:55pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

Why could the new pipeline not follow the route of one of the gas lines?

(for at least some of the distance)

Just a guess, but I'd imagine the route for a water pipeline would be more sensitive to elevation changes than for a gas pipeline.

tipptom · 09-11-2016 2:10pm

Water John wrote: »

This pipe like gas pipes etc. will mean disruption, loss of production for possibly 2 years. It will then have a wayleave attached to it.
It is a public utility for the public good. It thus is a balance of rights. A payment to those landowners is the correct mechanism.

Heard the guy with Pat Kenny yesterday mentioning 4 years.

plodder · 09-11-2016 2:40pm

Alun wrote: »

Just a guess, but I'd imagine the route for a water pipeline would be more sensitive to elevation changes than for a gas pipeline.

On that point, I watched the construction of the gas pipeline that crosses North county Dublin. It was interesting that the pipe was shaped to match the topology of the route exactly (as far as I could see). So, I guess it could be buried in a trench that was at a fixed depth the whole route. I doubt you would have that luxury with a water pipe.

Throw in a greenway while they're at it

That would be nice, but IW clearly have no interest and I'm sure it would raise the hackles of land owners somewhat more. Though, I presume the 20m corridor has to be effectively sterilised (from a development point of view) for ever more.

Water John · 09-11-2016 4:05pm

Yes, elevation should be a key issue for water pipe. I see rural houses built quite near the gas line. That element should only be a slight inconvenience.

Hopefully, it will be done in sections. One would hope that those civils would only take one season for any location.
Cannot see why there wouldn't be full land restoration. No need to get too excited. Any piece of infrastructure and a whole heap of people seem to loose their nut.

This is obviously a diff plan from the Bord Na Mona proposal. This had a holding reservoir in the midlands somewhere.

blue5000 · 09-11-2016 4:21pm

It'll be some PIA when it starts leaking in a 100 years time.:(

Water John · 09-11-2016 4:28pm

One word Blue, Philmac.

Shannon Water Pipeline - Parteen to Dublin

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