LAST UPDATE | 11 Oct
RAW SEWAGE FROM the equivalent of 40,000 people in 16 towns and villages across Ireland is still being emitted into seas and rivers every day, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Published today, the organisation’s Urban Wastewater Treatment in 2023 report states that this figure is down from 29 areas at the beginning of last year.
It also found that wastewater treatment in ten large towns and cities failed to meet European Union standards set to protect the environment.
The EPA accused Irish Water (Uisce Éireann) of being too slow to make improvements, stating that its delays in doing so in areas where wastewater is adversely impacting rivers and coastal waters are “prolonging risks to water quality”.
According to the report, wastewater treatment at many areas is “not good enough” to prevent discharges from impacting the quality of rivers, estuaries, lakes and coastal waters.
“All deficient wastewater works must be brought up to the standards required to protect the environment but, based on Irish Water estimates, this could take over two decades and will require substantial investment,” the report states.
It identified 73 priority areas where improvements in wastewater treatment are urgently needed to protect the environment. However, it said Irish Water has not started upgrade works at half of these areas yet.
“At an operational level, Uisce Éireann’s slow progress in designing and delivering the solutions needed at the waters most affected by wastewater discharges are prolonging impacts on water quality,” EPA director Dr Tom Ryan said.
Uisce Éireann must prioritise the prompt delivery of these essential works.
The report states that raw sewage is still being discharged from those 16 towns and villages “every day” because they do not have treatment plants.
Irish Water is implementing plans to provide treatment for six of these areas by next year. These include Arklow, which currently generates almost half the raw sewage discharged in Ireland every day.
It states that based on the latest plans, all the remaining areas will have treatment in place by 2030.
In the past year, Irish Water extended its timeline to deliver treatment for eight towns and villages by between two and five years. Reasons given for the delays included “statutory processes taking longer than expected and legal challenges”.
Despite this, the report states that “good progress” has been made, highlighting how ten towns and villages that previously discharged raw sewage every day were connected to treatment plants last year, while a further three were connected earlier this year.
Ryan said these changes were made as a result of investment, adding that it demonstrates “how such investment protects our environment and benefits our local communities”.
The EU’s Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive sets standards for treating wastewater at all large urban areas in Ireland. Of the 177 areas that were subject to this last year, ten areas did not meet the quality standards.
These were Dublin (Ringsend), Malahide, Aughrim, Arklow, Ballina-Killaloe, Limerick, Lahinch, Rathcormac, Cloyne and Moville.
Half of the wastewater in the country’s large urban areas was produced in the towns and cities that failed the standards last year.
Most of this was generated in the greater Dublin area and conveyed to the treatment plant at Ringsend, which treats over 40% of all national wastewaters.
The report states that infrastructure upgrades to increase the capacity of the Ringsend plant and bring it up to the required standard are “well advanced”.
It states that while the works are not due for completion until 2025, the upgraded infrastructure in place since the beginning of this year “is already improving effluent quality”.
When Ringsend comes into compliance with the EU directive, the EPA expects that more over 95% of wastewater generated in the country’s large urban areas will be treated to the proper standards.
The EPA also identified 34 priority areas where wastewater discharges are adversely impacting the quality of rivers, estuaries, lakes and coastal waters.
It said treatment plants serving two priority areas were recently upgraded and monitoring is ongoing to assess if the upgrades have resolved the risk of pollution.
Upgrades to treatment infrastructure at a further five priority areas are either ongoing or
due to start before the end of next year.
The EPA also identified collecting systems at six urban areas that need to be upgraded to protect the environment and address the findings of a 2019 judgement from the Court of Justice of the European Union.
It said improvements have been carried out on the collecting systems at Mallow and
Roscommon, but Irish Water needs to provide supporting information to show the improvements have resolved the risks and meet EU standards.
The report states that 97% of the country’s bathing waters either met or exceeded the minimum required quality standards last year. However, it identified wastewater as a “key pressure” on bathing water quality in some areas.
Sewers and pump stations that convey sewage to treatment plants at Ringsend and Balbriggan in Dublin and Buncrana in Co Donegal need improvements to fix “intermittent discharges of untreated sewage”.
These discharges contributed to poor bathing water quality classifications at three beaches last year.
When a bathing water is classified as poor, it means there is a risk of periodic pollution, which could make people sick.
Irish Water is upgrading the collecting systems at Balbriggan and Buncrana to reduce the risk of sewage overflows and protect bathing waters, but is still in the process of identifying the scope of works needed on the Ringsend collecting system.
The EPA said the pace at which Irish Water is progressing works for the remaining 27 priority areas is “far too slow”.
It said the state-owned water utility company “has been aware of the importance of improving treatment at these areas since 2017″, but is still considering its options on how to do this.
“Excessive delays in designing the improvements needed and then delivering them are prolonging risks to water quality in local rivers, estuaries, lakes and coastal waters,” the report states.
Last year, the EPA prosecuted Irish Water for failing to treat wastewater properly at five priority areas: Abbeydorney, Co. Kerry, Dunleer, Co. Louth, Kilmacrennan, Co. Donegal, Mullagh, Co. Cavan and Mullinahone, Co. Tipperary.
The report states that Irish Water “must finalise the outstanding action plans” to prevent pollution at the priority areas and accelerate the delivery of these plans.
It also states that the funding to implement these plans should get priority in Irish Water’s upcoming investment plan, which runs from 2025 to 2029.
EPA programme manager Noel Byrne said Irish Water “must address infrastructural deficits at the priority areas highlighted by the EPA during its 2025 to 2029 investment cycle”.
“This will help deliver significant environmental benefits and protect water quality.”
In a response to the EPA report issued this morning, Uisce Éireann said it “acknowledges and supports the EPA’s comments that wastewater infrastructure will require significant and sustained national investment in the years to come to bring all treatment systems up to the necessary standards.”
However, it outlined several measures undertaken by Uisce Éireann to improve upon the issue. It said it was “making strong progress” in addressing priority issues following decades of under-investment, and said that raw sewage discharges are now eliminated in 41 of 50 areas.
A total of 94% of wastewater treatment plants are compliant with Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, the body said, and 136 new wastewater treatment plants have been built or upgraded since 2014.
It said that a multi-billion euro investment is required “over many decades” to achieve “necessary standards”.
Uisce Éireann’s Senior Wastewater Delivery Manager, Michael Tinsley, commented, “Our once-in-a-generation plan to eliminate raw sewage discharges is on track to bring what can only be described as a life-changing improvement to communities around Ireland.
‘Cleaner waters, greater capacity for development and an enhanced environment are just some of the benefits these projects have delivered. We look forward to continuing the excellent progress being made to date, while acknowledging that delays remain in some areas, particularly in relation to legal challenges to planning and other consents, which are largely outside Uisce Éireann’s control.”
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