Raw sewage flushed into Cork river after Uisce Éireann engineers missed pipe misconnection  

The misconnection of a wastewater pipe, which resulted in five months’ worth of raw sewage being flushed into a source river for one of Cork’s main reservoirs, was missed by Uisce Éireann engineers.

In March, a new 30-apartment development in Glanmire was connected in error to the storm drain on East Cliff Rd, instead of to the sewage mains, which runs parallel to the drain.

The works were signed off at the time by engineers working for Uisce Éireann, The Echo has learned.

For five months, sewage from the Ashbrook apartments’ pumping station was flushed into the storm drain, and then through an overflow pipe on the Butlerstown bridge, and into the water below.

The Butlerstown river is a water source for the Glashaboy reservoir, which produces approximately 20m litres of water a day and serves an estimated population of 40,000 people across an area that includes Glanmire, Glounthane, Carrigtwohill, Little Island, and Cobh.

Drop in water levels

With the recent warm weather causing water levels to drop significantly, workers in the water treatment plant were on three occasions forced to cease operations due to dangerous levels of ammonia caused by sewage.

On August 13, sewage in the Butlerstown river was witnessed by members of the public on the Glanmire greenway, and they posted about it on Facebook.

An Uisce Éireann spokesperson said that as soon as it became aware of the pollution, on August 13, it deactivated the Ashbrook pumping station.

“Corrective works were completed by our crews on August 18,” they said. “Following the corrective works Uisce Éireann reviewed the issue and acknowledges the misconnection was not identified during the original connection process and are taking steps to ensure a similar issue does not occur in the future.”

The company insisted that drinking water supplied from the Glashaboy water treatment plant remained safe to drink.

“At no time was there any impact on the quality of drinking water supplied to customers or any risk to public health,” a spokesperson said.

Automation protection systems

They said water treatment plants are equipped with continuous monitoring and automated protection systems to safeguard drinking water quality.

“As designed, these systems temporarily suspend treatment operations when changes in raw water quality are detected, ensuring the continued protection of drinking water supplies.”

They added: “We are engaging with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) on the matter in line with standard procedures”.

Uisce Éireann did not respond when asked why it had not informed the EPA of the pollution of the Butlerstown river until Tuesday last week, three hours after The Echo had asked for comment.

Oliver Moran, local Green Party councillor, described as “inexcusable” Uisce Éireann’s delay in notifying the EPA.“Transparency shouldn’t be an afterthought for public services. It’s a fundamental obligation when dealing with incidents like this,” he said.