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LAST UPDATE | 11 Oct 2024
RAW SEWAGE FROM the equivalent of 40,000 people in 16 towns and villages across Ireland is still being emitted into seas and rivers every day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Published today, the organisation’s Urban Wastewater Treatment in 2023 report states that this figure is down from 29 areas at the beginning of last year.
It also found that wastewater treatment in ten large towns and cities failed to meet European Union standards set to protect the environment.
The EPA accused Irish Water (Uisce Éireann) of being too slow to make improvements, stating that its delays in doing so in areas where wastewater is adversely impacting rivers and coastal waters are “prolonging risks to water quality”.
According to the report, wastewater treatment at many areas is “not good enough” to prevent discharges from impacting the quality of rivers, estuaries, lakes and coastal waters.
“All deficient wastewater works must be brought up to the standards required to protect the environment but, based on Irish Water estimates, this could take over two decades and will require substantial investment,” the report states.
It identified 73 priority areas where improvements in wastewater treatment are urgently needed to protect the environment. However, it said Irish Water has not started upgrade works at half of these areas yet.
“At an operational level, Uisce Éireann’s slow progress in designing and delivering the solutions needed at the waters most affected by wastewater discharges are prolonging impacts on water quality,” EPA director Dr Tom Ryan said.
Uisce Éireann must prioritise the prompt delivery of these essential works.
The report states that raw sewage is still being discharged from those 16 towns and villages “every day” because they do not have treatment plants.
Irish Water is implementing plans to provide treatment for six of these areas by next year. These include Arklow, which currently generates almost half the raw sewage discharged in Ireland every day.
It states that based on the latest plans, all the remaining areas will have treatment in place by 2030.
In the past year, Irish Water extended its timeline to deliver treatment for eight towns and villages by between two and five years. Reasons given for the delays included “statutory processes taking longer than expected and legal challenges”.
Despite this, the report states that “good progress” has been made, highlighting how ten towns and villages that previously discharged raw sewage every day were connected to treatment plants last year, while a further three were connected earlier this year.
Ryan said these changes were made as a result of investment, adding that it demonstrates “how such investment protects our environment and benefits our local communities”.
The EU’s Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive sets standards for treating wastewater at all large urban areas in Ireland. Of the 177 areas that were subject to this last year, ten areas did not meet the quality standards.
These were Dublin (Ringsend), Malahide, Aughrim, Arklow, Ballina-Killaloe, Limerick, Lahinch, Rathcormac, Cloyne and Moville.
Half of the wastewater in the country’s large urban areas was produced in the towns and cities that failed the standards last year.
Most of this was generated in the greater Dublin area and conveyed to the treatment plant at Ringsend, which treats over 40% of all national wastewaters.
The report states that infrastructure upgrades to increase the capacity of the Ringsend plant and bring it up to the required standard are “well advanced”.
It states that while the works are not due for completion until 2025, the upgraded infrastructure in place since the beginning of this year “is already improving effluent quality”.
When Ringsend comes into compliance with the EU directive, the EPA expects that more over 95% of wastewater generated in the country’s large urban areas will be treated to the proper standards.
The EPA also identified 34 priority areas where wastewater discharges are adversely impacting the quality of rivers, estuaries, lakes and coastal waters.
It said treatment plants serving two priority areas were recently upgraded and monitoring is ongoing to assess if the upgrades have resolved the risk of pollution.
Upgrades to treatment infrastructure at a further five priority areas are either ongoing or
due to start before the end of next year.
The EPA also identified collecting systems at six urban areas that need to be upgraded to protect the environment and address the findings of a 2019 judgement from the Court of Justice of the European Union.
It said improvements have been carried out on the collecting systems at Mallow and
Roscommon, but Irish Water needs to provide supporting information to show the improvements have resolved the risks and meet EU standards.
The report states that 97% of the country’s bathing waters either met or exceeded the minimum required quality standards last year. However, it identified wastewater as a “key pressure” on bathing water quality in some areas.
Sewers and pump stations that convey sewage to treatment plants at Ringsend and Balbriggan in Dublin and Buncrana in Co Donegal need improvements to fix “intermittent discharges of untreated sewage”.
These discharges contributed to poor bathing water quality classifications at three beaches last year.
When a bathing water is classified as poor, it means there is a risk of periodic pollution, which could make people sick.
Irish Water is upgrading the collecting systems at Balbriggan and Buncrana to reduce the risk of sewage overflows and protect bathing waters, but is still in the process of identifying the scope of works needed on the Ringsend collecting system.
The EPA said the pace at which Irish Water is progressing works for the remaining 27 priority areas is “far too slow”.
It said the state-owned water utility company “has been aware of the importance of improving treatment at these areas since 2017″, but is still considering its options on how to do this.
“Excessive delays in designing the improvements needed and then delivering them are prolonging risks to water quality in local rivers, estuaries, lakes and coastal waters,” the report states.
Last year, the EPA prosecuted Irish Water for failing to treat wastewater properly at five priority areas: Abbeydorney, Co. Kerry, Dunleer, Co. Louth, Kilmacrennan, Co. Donegal, Mullagh, Co. Cavan and Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary.
The report states that Irish Water “must finalise the outstanding action plans” to prevent pollution at the priority areas and accelerate the delivery of these plans.
It also states that the funding to implement these plans should get priority in Irish Water’s upcoming investment plan, which runs from 2025 to 2029.
EPA programme manager Noel Byrne said Irish Water “must address infrastructural deficits at the priority areas highlighted by the EPA during its 2025 to 2029 investment cycle”.
“This will help deliver significant environmental benefits and protect water quality.”
In a response to the EPA report issued this morning, Uisce Éireann said it “acknowledges and supports the EPA’s comments that wastewater infrastructure will require significant and sustained national investment in the years to come to bring all treatment systems up to the necessary standards.”
However, it outlined several measures undertaken by Uisce Éireann to improve upon the issue. It said it was “making strong progress” in addressing priority issues following decades of under-investment, and said that raw sewage discharges are now eliminated in 41 of 50 areas.
A total of 94% of wastewater treatment plants are compliant with Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, the body said, and 136 new wastewater treatment plants have been built or upgraded since 2014.
It said that a multi-billion euro investment is required “over many decades” to achieve “necessary standards”.
Uisce Éireann’s Senior Wastewater Delivery Manager, Michael Tinsley, commented, “Our once-in-a-generation plan to eliminate raw sewage discharges is on track to bring what can only be described as a life-changing improvement to communities around Ireland.
‘Cleaner waters, greater capacity for development and an enhanced environment are just some of the benefits these projects have delivered. We look forward to continuing the excellent progress being made to date, while acknowledging that delays remain in some areas, particularly in relation to legal challenges to planning and other consents, which are largely outside Uisce Éireann’s control.”
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Bonuses all round for the Irish Water top brass. Hundreds of millions being handed over to them and they can’t fix the simplest of things. Can you just imagine handing over your hard earned money to those wasters?
@David Corrigan: we do already hand our hard earned money over to them
@CP: True CP. But they wanted more.
@David Corrigan: they are funded by central exchequer , your taxes, not a magic money tree.
@David Corrigan: you do that with each pay packet…
@David Corrigan: Irish water is funded through the Exchequer via General Taxation, SF and other opposition parties pressured the government into it. In fairness Irish water, they have being in exsistance 12 years and have got through a huge amount of work. They took over a national service with a crumbling infrastructure. A infrastructure was was long ignored and underfunded by every county council in the country. I’d say the money spent by IW over the last 10 years if far higher than the previous 50 years before that.
@David Corrigan: hi David, hate to be a bore but could you detail your simple fix and associated costs and timeliness for completion please.
@Liam23: What utter BS. MM, then leader of the opposition, called for the suspension of water charges in exchange for a confidence and supply agreement with FG in 2016. Nothing to do with SF or ‘ other opposition parties’. As usual every siht show, in every sector, in this country is down to FFG.. nobody else.
Shush with these sort of articles, the public have bought into our “it’s all the farmers fault” mantra, they don’t need to know it their own waste their drinking.
@P. V. Aglue: “An ecosystem is a relatively self-contained community of interacting organisms and the environment they live in, and interact with. There is a flow of energy within an ecosystem and nutrients within it are recycled. There are both living (biotic) components and non-living (abiotic)components within an ecosystem”
2030??
Are they kidding?
This is a serious risk to public health.
Newport, Co. Mayo, has increased in population, has more “bums on seats” and the raw sewage is piped out a short distance into Clew Bay only for the tides and currents to bring it all floating back up the Blackoak river every day. On a high tide the discharge bubbles up the drains in the streets and houses near the water and I don’t need to describe the putrid odour. Fishing, swimming or kayaking is impossible.
She said 16 towns and villages emitting raw sewage every day in Ireland. I think she’s taking the p is, there are that many in every county. But they’ll keep blaming the farmers a handy scrap goat.There are 9 villages within 10 miles from me, 3 of them have treatment plants, the rest store it up and let it off by night, or some of them at high tide
@Max: It’s the chemicals that seep into the water, pray tell how that is anything but farmers’ fault?
@Brian D’Arcy: there’s more nitrogen in the atmosphere than there’ll ever be in water
@P. V. Aglue: does it poison waterways while suspended in the atmosphere?
The state can pollute to it’s hearts content but there’s blue murder if the farmer puts a foot wrong. It’s high time the state officials got the same treatment the farmers have been subjected to for many years now.
Green party taxes….the hypocrisy!
How many workers does it take to change a light bulb? None. We have an essential street light out of order for 3 years in Dublin. Where are our taxes really going?
Also in skerries. Half a km right of shenick. There’s a stream there. It’s awful smelly.
@Argus Romsworth: and loughrea in Co. Galway. Raw sewerage flowing into the local river for the last 60 years and from the “new” treatment plant since it was opened. How many more are omitted from the list?
Imagine the private sector faced such scrutiny.
Imagine fining yourself? Which is what we are essentially doing. How quickly would you change your ways? If UE can’t be bothered to fix these problems in a timely manner, then I’m all for using my tax monies to employ someone who can. It’s like the Metro, China said they would build and manage it, but we refused. If we can’t do something ourselves without wasting billions on it, it might be time to hold up our hands and admit defeat, then commission somebody who can get the job done.
How can I swim in the rivers with disgusting sewage!? A disgusting disgrace
Not to mention what comes out of Mary Lou !
@Dave c: Yawn, must have taken you all day to think that up.
Problem all across Europe. I saw raw sewerage coming out of the overflows on the street in Lanzarote while I was there a few weeks ago
@Peter Byrne: I think that was the volcanic Ash.. the people are very clean in lanzarote
Longford , includes pharmaceutical waste
Stopping the raw sewage from Leinster House should be the priority!
The usual NGO mouth pieces have traps sewn shut today.
Blame climate change that’s the green media answer to issues they report on, a but the green politicians tend to be looking the other way on this one.
Government is the problem
Some KIP
have your say