Boil water notice in west Limerick to be lifted in the new year
A BOIL water notice issued for 7,000 people in west Limerick won’t be lifted before the new year, as previously understood.
The boil water notice is affecting those who avail of the Foynes-Shannon Estuary Public Water Supply, including the Shannagolden, Ballyhahill, Loghill, Ballysteen, Pallaskenry, Kildimo, and Askeaton areas.
Uisce Éireann is currently progressing with plans to install an ultraviolet reactor at a wastewater treatment plant in Foynes to render the cryptosporidium detected in the water inactive.
Cryptosporidium is a parasite that comes from either human or animal faeces and can be harmful when ingested.
Plans to install the ultraviolet reactor before the new year look promising but it will take a number of weeks following installation before the water is safe to consume, pending HSE testing.
It is understood that pending satisfactory testing by the HSE, the boil water notice could be lifted before the end of January.
Uisce Éireann’s Duane O’Brien commented: “The required upgrade works will be substantially completed by the end of this year, while the commissioning and process proving stage will then continue into January.
“This stage is necessary to confirm that the risk to consumers has been eliminated and ensure that the works are operating satisfactorily and reliably. Once adequate operating data has been collected, Uisce Éireann will engage with the HSE in January to discuss if the Boil Water Notice can be removed.”
Councillors from the municipal district of Adare-Rathkeale had their second on-site meeting at the Foynes plant with Uisce Éireann last week, to see the ongoing works.
Independent councillor, John O’Donoghue said “they have a lot of work done in the last couple of weeks”.
“They seemed confident that they’d have this [reactor] connected prior to Christmas but unfortunately they think themselves it won’t satisfy the HSE enough to lift the boil water notice.
“I can understand their point of view that they will have to run this for maybe a week to ten days, show peaks and troughs with a graph and satisfy the HSE to see that what we have in situ here is exactly what is going to deal with the problem,” Mr O’Donoghue said.