Proposed water abstraction prompts industry concern

THE proposed extraction of up to 500 million litres daily of water from Lough Derg would hinder efforts to attract large multinationals into the region, a local angling group has claimed.

Kevin Grimes of St Flannan’s Angling Club warned that a corporate giant such as Intel or Hewlett Packard would not locate a major new factory in the Mid-West if the promoters couldn’t be guaranteed a reliable source of good quality water.
“This region has a lot of advantages when it comes to attracting multinationals, Shannon International Airport, a good road infrastructure, an educated workforce and the University of Limerick.
“All this would count for nothing unless we can assure new developers that plenty of water will be available for commercial use. That will no longer be the case if water abstraction is permitted,” he said.
Dublin City Council have put forward a €550m proposal to pipe vast quantities of water from Lough Derg on the River Shannon to the greater Dublin Region.
The population of the Dublin Region is projected to reach 2.2m by 2031. The Dublin Region currently needs about 550m litres of treated water to keep its 1.5m inhabitants happy.
Within 21 years, that will increase to 800m litres a day, leaving a 350m litre deficit.
The latest plan is that raw water would be pumped during high flow and flooding periods from Northern Lough Derg into large-scale storage lakes in Bord na Móna-owned former cutaway bogs in Offaly, adjacent to the raw water storage lakes, pumping water to Dublin, Mid-East and Midland Regions.
The cutaway bog would double as “an innovative water-based eco park, with fishing, boating, cycling, water and leisure sports, with the promise of 1,000 construction jobs in addition to long-term tourism and recreation employment for the region.
Dan Minchin of the Lough Derg Science Group expressed concerns about the extraction of water from Lough Derg, by Dublin City Council, during prolonged periods of low-flow and drought.
He says the group does not have enough scientific information to be sure that the proposed abstraction would have no undue effects on the Lough Derg ecosystem.
Dr Minchin, a marine biologist, explained that water flow and circulation throughout the lake is important for its health.
During dry periods, the surface water heats up and, being lighter, separates itself from the colder and heavier water beneath.
Already in the late spring and early summer, lake users have seen such trends with differences of temperature of up to 8ºC between the warm and deeper cold layers. The colder water zone gradually loses its oxygen and if these conditions persist, the oxygen gets used up and fish and their food could die unless this water gets recirculated. The effects of climate change are uncertain but predictions indicate that there will be dryer summers and wetter winters.
“While there would be no undue concern about taking water during periods of high water flow, it is the low-flow periods that are a particular cause for concern. The mixing and aeration of the water in the lake is from wind and river flow. The abstraction of water from the proposed site at the top end of Lough Derg would reduce the overall flow through the lake, which may be important during warm periods when there is little wind.
“The option to abstract water at the Parteen Dam, at the lower end of Lough Derg, would at least enable the water to pass through the lake before being removed and this option should be revisited,” he said.
Dr Minchin is unsure that such an abstraction plan is necessary as he believes that the metering of water, as required under the Water Framework Directive, would reduce demand and that the capture of rainwater would reduce the requirement of having to treat large volumes of water.
In Melbourne, water is managed carefully with restrictions according to availability. Perhaps, he said, we can learn from such cities where water is carefully managed. There is a strong possibility that water may be needed for the Midland Region and there may be a need to service the waterways for commercial traffic in the future.
“We do not have a full understanding of the seasonal volumes of water draining from rivers and what evaporates into the air in order to predict the overall effects from such an abstraction plan,” he added.
Mr Minchin expressed his reservations after the establishment of a Limerick branch of the Shannon Protection Alliance (SPA) has been formed in Limerick, to alert the people in the Mid-West about the implications of Dublin City Council’s plans.
The SPA believes approval for this proposal would signal the beginning of the plunder of Ireland’s finest waterway with serious consequences for the life of the river and would undoubtedly upset the balance and natural order in numerous ways.
Limerick is joining forces with other SPA branches, Athlone (Lough Ree) and Dromineer (Lough Derg), to present a united front along the whole of the Shannon in opposing these proposals on ecological, environmental, commercial, recreational, and social grounds.
SPA claimed insufficient consideration has been given to water conservation, groundwater abstraction, desalination, water metering, rain water harvesting and the use of grey water. If these measures are seriously adopted, it has been calculated that the greater Dublin area would have a surplus of water for many years to come.
“If abstraction were allowed to proceed, SPA believes that a precedent would be set and this would merely be the thin edge of the wedge.
“Demand would grow exponentially and opportunist extractors would emerge to put even more pressure on the river and in time, the Shannon would go the way of an increasing number of rivers around the world that have been disastrously compromised, many beyond recovery,” said branch spokesman, Gerry Siney.