Uisce Éireann has said that it is not feasible to put a date on when its wastewater treatment plants can achieve full statutory and regulatory compliance.
Last week, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report stated that Uisce Éireann estimated that it will “take over two decades” to bring its plants up to standards.
This Friday, RTÉ reported that an internal document from the company stated it will take “in excess of 40 years” for its facilities to be compliant.
Compliance standards for both water and wastewater are continuously changing and evolving, driven by national and European legislation, a spokesperson for Uisce Éireann told the Irish Farmers Journal.
“For example, both the drinking water directive has undergone and urban wastewater treatment directive is undergoing revisions at European level, which will be transposed into Irish law, further enhancing the regulatory standards in both areas.
"These new directives focus on risks, the need to identify risks and address them before compliance becomes an issue,” the spokesperson said.
They stated that Uisce Éireann must undertake “further analysis” to understand risks relating to the existing assets and noted that these assets comprise over 90,000km of water and wastewater pipes, over 1,066 wastewater plants, 702 water plants and over 4,000 pumping stations.
Time to assess
“It will take some time to fully assess, prioritise and put plans in place to ensure the infrastructure is upgraded to achieve these new standards.
"Any such plans will be subject to the provision of adequate funding and this will require sustained high levels of investment over multiple investment cycles.
“For these reasons, it would not be feasible at this point to provide a date for achieving full statutory and regulatory compliance. However, significant progress has been made in this regard in both water and wastewater,” the spokesperson said.
The latest wastewater report found that there was a 45% reduction in the number of towns and villages discharging raw sewage since the start of 2023.
Over half of licensed treatment plants discharge wastewater that does not always meet the standards set in wastewater discharge licences to protect the environment, the report found.
“Furthermore, over 400 storm water overflows on collecting systems (sewers) do not meet national standards set to limit pollution.
"Some 30 years after member states had to bring provisions into force to comply with the urban waste water treatment directive, Ireland has not complied with the directive at all areas,” it stated.
Compliance
The company said that it recognises that challenges exist given the age of some of the infrastructure and the scale of investment needed.
“Many treatment plants were built decades ago and may not have been designed to meet today's environmental standards. This makes them more susceptible to equipment failures, operational issues and accidental discharges.
“We acknowledge and regret that there have been several incidents of discharges from treatment plants which have had environmental impacts. Such incidents are not acceptable and we are committed to minimising the recurrence of such incidents in the future.”
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