Irish Water fined following drinking water issues in county Cork
Irish Water has been fined €2,000 and ordered to pay €5,500 in legal costs for failing to address drinking water problems in Co. Cork.
The national water utility, which is responsible for providing and developing water and wastewater services throughout Ireland, faced charges following a direction given on June 5, 2015 by the EPA.
The prosecution brought by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was in respect of the supply of drinking water at Drimoleague and Kealkill.
The court heard Irish Water failed to submit final reports to the EPA before the end of 2018, verifying that trihalomethanes (THMs) levels were not excessive.
THMs, which can have a can have possible carcinogenic effects if consumed over long periods, are a bi-product of chlorination to disinfect ground water, which makes their way into the public water supply.
The case was listed again before Anthony Halpin at Dublin District Court yesterday/today (wed) for finalisation. A guilty plea had been marked in October.
The court heard it was expected Irish Water will be compliant in the near future.
Judge Halpin convicted it and imposed two fines each in the sum of €1,000 and he ordered a contribution to prosecution costs. A joint EPA-HSE statement had been posted online in 2011 about the health effects impact of excessive THMs.
Meanwhile, two other EPA prosecutions against Irish Water were adjourned until March.
They were in connection with alleged sewage problems in Co Kildare and in Co. Cork.
It is alleged from March 14 to March 21, 2019, Irish Water failed to take corrective action or notify the agency as soon as practicable about three incidents of discharge of untreated sewage from Newhall Pumping Station into the River Liffey, with potential for environmental contamination of surface water.
It is also accused of not informing Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), the State agency responsible for the protection, management and conservation of Ireland's inland fisheries and sea angling resources.
The water company is also accused of failing to maintain a programme for the maintenance and operation of all plant and equipment used at Newhall Pumping Station to ensure no unauthorised waste water discharges took place.
It is alleged, in another charge, that there was a failure to tell another treatment plant which operates the downstream Leixlip drinking water abstraction point, about the three incidents of raw sewage discharge.
It is also accused of failing to make a record of the extent or impact of the incidents.
It is alleged the company breached its wastewater discharge licence by excessive ammonia emissions from its water water works in Boherbue, Co. Cork, on eight dates between August 2017 and February 2019.
It faces eight similar counts in relation to exceeding emission limit values from orthophosphates from August 2017 until a date in January 2019.
In an EPA prosecution last month, Judge Halpin fined Irish Water €1,500 and ordered it to pay €850 to the EPA for its expenses, and a further €5,000 toward legal costs. .
The court had heard in that case that Malahide marina was polluted with enough raw sewage to fill two and a half Olympic-size swimming pools.
It followed a water treatment plant malfunction which has since been rectified. During that hearing the court heard the company already had 14 prior convictions in relation to environmental protection cases.
