Maintenance of water system costs millions
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Wednesday February 03 2010
IT WILL COST Wexford County Council €7.1 million this year to provide water to commercial and domestic consumers on top of €7.7 million for waste water treatment.
About 20 per cent of the water bill is spent on electricity costs at pumping stations while labour costs involved in maintenance, repairs and monitoring are also significant.
About ¤500,000 a year is being spent on water conservation under an advanced monitoring system which was set up to detect wastage on the 2,000 kilometres of water piping in the county.
Water pressure and flow is measured every day in about 90 separate zones and the data relayed by radio or SIM card to the cental water service office in Mayglass.
If the flow increases suddenly, alarms are raised at pumping stations and reservoirs and sent to mobile phones and laptops, to alert Council staff to a leak.
While the monitoring system costs half a million, it is saving the local authority about a million Euro in conserved water.
If metering is introduced, about 30,000 houses in County Wexford currently connected to the mains network, will be affected. The remainder of households either have their own water wells or ar part of private group water schemes.
The metering method is preferable to a fixed charge, according to Director of Services Niall McGuigan. It is fairer because people pay by usage; it encourages people to conserve water and allows the Council to measure the amount of water being used.
Personally, he wouldn't mind paying for water in the same way that he pays for electricity, he said.
He agrees that it will bring challenges, as there will be a greater pressure on the Council to ensure that supply is up to standard when people are paying for the service.
While demand for water has increased in line with the population increase and the building boom, the Council is not producing significantly more water. Its higher capacity has come from conserving water.
Water quality is generally high in Wexford and supply has improved hugely in the past five years, but the Council is stretched to provide sufficient quantity in some areas, especially Gorey where major pipe improvements works are already underway.
A five-kilometre pipe costing ¤1 million is being replaced as part of a major contract involving 25 kilometres of new piping connected to eight boreholes with a small treatment plant and reservoir.
' That will more or less secure the Gorey supply for the future', said Mr. McGuigan, adding that the Government is expected to announce funding for the next phase in February.
In some areas, pipes that were laid in the 1960s have become brittle and need replacing. In one North Wexford location, the leakage was equivalent to an extra 1,000 houses.
The Council is confident of securing funding for further smaller schemes around the county to increase water levels.
- Inset: Director of services Niall McGuigan.
