Council allay fears about Kilkishen wastewater plant

Clare County Council is confident that there will be sufficient capacity in the Kilkishen Wastewater Treatment Plan (WWTP) to cope with pending developments, despite a projection indicating that difficulties could arise in the future if all planned construction went ahead.

The plant was constructed to serve a population equivalent (PE) of 440 with a design maximum capacity PE of 750.

According to a document submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), planning permission for developments with a combined PE of 428 was granted by the council from 1997 to 2009.

This outlined 155 houses and six apartments were approved during this period and when the wastewater requirement of 2.7 per house and 1.5 per apartment unit is calculated, this combines to a PE of 428.

If all these developments were built, this would mean the plant would run into capacity difficulties coping with the additional demand.

As there is very little non-domestic inflow for Kilkishen WWTP, senior engineer, Sean Ward explained the PE can be taken, with little loss of accuracy, as being the same as the actual human population.

In the council’s application in 2009 for a wastewater discharge licence, Mr Ward recalled the authority calculated the population equivalent going into the plant as of mid-2008 as 377, leaving a spare capacity of 373.

“If we add all developments granted planning permission between 1997 and 2009, we would have an extra approximately 428 population.

“Subject to more detailed checking, some of the developments granted planning permission between 1997 and 2009 have been built or partly built, and therefore their population has already been counted in the 2008 assessment of population equivalent going to the treatment plant.

“If the housing market experiences a revival and all of the remaining unbuilt developments are actually built in the foreseeable future, they will not add 428 population but a smaller number,” he explained.

The council’s view is endorsed by Councillor Joe Cooney who believes the plant is still under capacity because a number of residential developments haven’t been built or fully completed.

This included a major development of 76 dwellings at Tulla Road, Kilkishen, which was granted planning permission in 2006. The county council refused a planning application from Ger Lenihan and Kevin Heffernan earlier this year for a five-year extension of time for the original planning approval.

The existence of small wastewater treatment package plants within the town shaped the location of the pumping stations serving the sewer network.

Dun an Oir pumping station serves the southern end of the town nearest the plant, while Plunket Drive is located to the west of the town with Hillcrest Grove situated to the south of the town along the main corridor.

There are no commercial or industrial sector discharges to the plant, which was constructed in 2002 to the east of the town adjacent the shoreline of Clonlea Lough and about 50m south of the ruins of Clonlea church and graveyard.

Meanwhile, the EPA still hasn’t made a final decision on the council’s wastewater discharge licence, which was lodged on May 19, 2009. The council has received no indication from the EPA in relation to a decision being made on the licence application.