Derg water plan to face European court?

Plans to extract more than 500 million litres of water daily from Lough Derg could be challenged in the European courts, a lobby group has warned.

The River Shannon Protection Alliance has claimed that Dublin City Council’s controversial plan to abstract water from Lough Derg to address water shortages in the Dublin region in 2020 is in breach of the European Water Framework Directive (WFD).

Members of the group presented a case outlining their opposition to this proposal at a meeting with Natural Resources Minister Fergus O’Dowd and officials from the Department of the Environment in Dublin on Tuesday.

They claimed there is a serious risk this level of extraction will increase exponentially year on year, and at these levels major and unsustainable damage will take place ecologically, environmentally, economically and socially to the lake and its environs.

Group chairman Gerry Siney warned there is a danger that if project is deemed unsustainable by An Bord Pleanála and fails to meet its objectives, the complete investment of €500,000 (half a billion) Euros will be lost and unrecoverable.

Mr Siney claimed there are many alternative water sources which are available to Dublin City Council closer to Dublin, and at a much lower cost, which make Shannon abstraction wholly and completely unneccessary.

He proposed fixing of supply and customer side leaks to eliminate water loss of 160 million litres per day in perpetuity, which will increase supply while eliminating profligate and unsupportable wastage.

He argued an estimated 100 million litres of high quality groundwater is available from the Fingal/Meath/Kildare aquifer, close to Dublin, without the need for a 100 mile pipeline from Lough Derg.

“Desalination, once thought to be too expensive, is not so anymore. Significant technological advances, such as reverse osmosis is making desalination more cost effective. This needs to be revisited.

“These measures with a combination of demand management and conservation could make this project unnecessary,” he said..

It is expected that consultants to carry out the Environmental Impact Assessment will be appointed by the Government in January. The completion of the EIA could take 18 months before a planning application will be lodged with An Bord Pleanála under the Strategic Infrastructure Act.

The delegation included members of the River Shannon Protection Alliance Gerry Siney, Limerick; Declan Collison, Dromineer; Donal Whelan, Dromineer and Patsy Perrill, Coonagh; Limerick County Councillors Mary Jackman and Tomas Hannon; Limerick City Councillor, John Gilligan and Clare County Councillor Pat Burke.
They were advised at the meeting, which lasted 90 minutes, that further submissions from the group and members of the public would be accepted once an application for the project is lodged with the appeals’ board.

Although funding has been committed for the completion of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), Councillor Pat Burke expressed disappointment and surprise that the group weren’t presented an estimate of what this will cost.

Councillor Burke, who arranged the meeting with Minister O’Dowd, said people living along the lake are very concerned about the impact of this proposal for their children and grandchildren.

“If Dublin City Council get a foothold in Lough Derg, the consequences would be devastating. We are totally opposed to any water abstraction from Lough Derg. If this plan proceeds what will stop the council taking water when they need it regardless of the water levels on the lake.

“The group has no vested interest and its only concern is the protection of the lake. While some people fear this could be a ‘fait accompli’ I believe this project has to go through a lot of legislative and planning hoops before it can even be properly considered,” he said.

The SEA Phase Two Environmental Statement prepared on behalf of the council stated its plan assumes full domestic as well as non-domestic metering, volumetric charging of customers and a lowering of distribution and customer leakage levels to equivalent best international practice. The plan proposes to reduce current network leakage of about 30% to 20% by 2030.

The Environmental Statement noted the recommended new water supply scheme forms part of an overall integrated water resource management solution for the Dublin region, which includes implementation of the lowest practicable leakage levels and reducing domestic demand.

While the Environmental Statement acknowledges desalination of sea water is technically feasible, it points out this technology is being increasingly used in countries that are water stressed and don’t have alternative surface water or groundwater sources available to them.

“A desalination water supply option to produce 300 Mld would cost over 25 years of operation in the order of €1 billion versus €650 million for the techinically equivalent recommended Shannon option with a production capability of 300/350 Mld,” the Environment Statement outlines.

“The external raw water storage in a Bord na Mona site near Portarlington enables water abstractions from Lough Derg to be linked to inflows into Lough Derg; higher abstraction during high flow periods to meet water supply needs and fill the storage area and lower abstraction during low flow periods when demand for water can be met from Lough Derg and storage.

“Varying abstraction rates in this manner will ensure that water quality in Lough Derg will not be impacted by the water supply proposals,” it stated.

The council hadn’t responded to a Clare Champion query at the time of going to press.