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Watermains replacement work on pipes, some of which are believed to be more than 70 years old, will be completed at about eight locations throughout the town, including along the Clare Road from St Flannan’s College to the Mill Road.
Work will also be carried out in a number of residential areas. The main purpose of the scheme is to replace the pipes in the poorest condition and the ones that are leaking the most.
Information on the new traffic arrangements will be distributed by the council well in advance of the project.
Ennis Town Council executive engineer, Eamon O’Dea acknowledged this would involve significant disruption in the areas the council are doing works, which would be unavoidable. The council expects the project will start next spring.
Nicholas O’Dwyer Ltd was recently awarded the contract for the provision of engineering services for the Clare County Council Water Conservation Project – Ennis Watermain Rehabilitation Works.
The project involves the preparation of a design review report, network modelling, investigative contracts, Unaccounted-for-water (UFW) reporting, preparation of tender documents for the rehabilitation works, tender evaluation and project management of the works contract.
Detailed survey work has been undertaken by the council of the watermains network in the town over a number of years to identify the worst locations. The town is divided into zones to enable the authority to ascertain how much water should be used in any zone at a particular time. This facilitates more intensive surveys to establish where the biggest water losses are occurring.
All lead service pipes found to be connected to the existing mains will be replaced with non-lead service pipes off the new mains under the project, which is expected to replace 18km of mains in total.
Mr O’Dea explained these watermains have to be replaced because of their age.
“The problem with old watermains is you can carry out repair work on one section but by the end of the week, a problem can emerge in another section because you have increased the pressure on the pipe.
“The main intention of the scheme is to reduce water losses. It will result in substantial reductions in water losses where work is carried out. The worst areas in the town are the areas where watermains replacement is being completed first.
“By carrying out minor short-terms repairs, all you are doing is moving the leak to another location in the watermains section. What you really need to do is to replace the complete section. The council will be completing one contract that gets us to a certain point and on completion of the project, we will evaluate how effective it has been.
“By improving the watermains network in one area, it may create a problem in another network by increasing the water pressure in that area,” he said.
Clare County Council senior engineer, Tom Tiernan pointed out a lot of people would not realise how old the watermains are in the town.
“Some of the watermains network has been in place for the last 70 or 80 years. A lot of detailed work has been carried out by the council. Up to now, there has been a weakness in terms of funding to replace watermains. Watermains that have been replaced have done serious work over the years. It is very positive that a watermains programme is happening and work will start early next year,” he said.
Mr O’Dea explained that in some of old cast-iron watermains in the town centre, the diameter gets smaller, reducing from a 4in to a 2½in pipe, due to incrustation on the inside of the pipes, which drastically reduces the capacity.
The new pipes will be high-density plastic type pipes or other suitable material, depending on what sizes are needed. Some of the new pipes will be quite large as they will be carrying large volumes of water, while others are distribution mains pipes for buildings and properties in the area.
Mr Tiernan expects the cast-iron old pipes will be left in the ground in some cases and new connections will be moved onto the new system.
