Repairs underway on fault at treatment plant following sewage discharge into West Cork river

Works are under way on remedying a fault at the Dunmanway waste water treatment plant, which led to a continuous discharge of sewage into the Bandon River near the West Cork town, an Uisce Éireann spokesperson has confirmed.

A video depicting what was described as ‘pure pollution’ flowing into the river from the town’s waste water treatment plant, had already been viewed more than 12,000 times before it was highlighted by a Fine Gael councillor during a meeting of Cork County Council on Monday.

The account given by Noel O’Donovan, who represents the West Cork Municipal District on the council, prompted several of his colleagues to give accounts of similar sewage related issues in their areas.

This led to an unaminous call for Uisce Éireann executives to come before the council to give an account of what the utility was doing to deal with those issues as well as setting out investment plans for developing new plants and upgrading its existing facilities.

Overloaded 

Councillors told of issues surrounding sewage discharge and overloaded plants in Macroom, Carrignavar, Carrigaline, Castletownbere, and Bandon.

Mr O’Donovan said that he didn’t want negative headlines while it was the height of summer and the tourist season in West Cork, but he had to highlight what was happening in Dunmanway.

Mr O’Donovan said: “For anyone who’s seen the video, its upsetting.”

“There’s no words to describe how disgusting, how shocking it is, to look at the colour of the water that’s coming out of the discharge in Dunmanway.

“For any of us looking at it, there’s no assessment needed to know what that actually is”.

The waste water treatment plant was put in place in Dunmanway in 2013.

After this, new EU guidelines came into effect, and the facility in Dunmanway was no longer complying with these standards.

Cork County Council chief executive Moira Murrell told councillors that she had attended a meeting with Uisce Éireann, pointing out she had been told that the utility had invested upwards of €80m in Co Cork over the past eight years.

Her colleague Michael Lynch, divisional manager for South Cork, told the meeting that the council had updated Uisce Éireann last weekend about the latest situation regarding the discharges at the Dunmanway plant and would do so again after the meeting concluded.

Incidents

Councillors called on the executive to seek an urgent meeting with Uisce Éireann about the incident at Dunmanway and a litany of similar incidents in locations around the county.

They also called for a letter to be sent to the minister for the environment to voice the concerns expressed at the meeting.

In the statement from Uisce Éireann, the spokesperson said the cause of the incident related to air flow to the process units and confirmed remedial works were currently under way.

“Uisce Éireann is engaging with Inland Fisheries Ireland and the EPA in relation to [the incident] and we will provide further updates as they become available” said the spokesperson.

Cork South West Fianna Fáil TD Christopher O’Sullivan said it was unacceptable that the town of Dunmanway would have to wait ‘five to 10 years for the solution to waste water capacity’.

“The plant is only 12 years old,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

“It was built for capacity of 3,400, and the population of Dunmanway is at around 2,500.”

“There’s serious questions that have to be answered as to how we got to this point.”