DUBLIN CITY Council is to carry out “intensive monitoring” of water levels and water quality in Lough Derg on the river Shannon as a prelude to advancing its controversial plan to take water to supply the Dublin region.
A strategic environmental assessment (SEA) of the plan, which would involve storing and treating water in a cutaway bog in Co Laois, was published by the council yesterday in compliance with EU regulations.
Project director Tom Leahy said th assessment confirmed that the plan was “the best one for Ireland to provide a sustainable future water supply for the 10 counties along the route as well as to the greater Dublin area”, where 40 per cent of the population now lives.
“The water scheme – including the new midlands water-based eco-park and storage, is essential to provide for security of supply and job creation – will not affect water levels on the Shannon and fully protects the environment,” Mr Leahy said.
According to the environmental assessment, the taking of raw water with intermediate storage was preferred, “based on available information” that it would not have significant environmental impacts, although further monitoring and mitigation measures would be required.
Under article 10 of the EU’s SEA directive, monitoring must be carried out in order to identify at an early stage any “unforeseen adverse effects” due to the implementation of a plan, so that the promoters would be able to take remedial action.
An independent working group is to be set up to identify the monitoring required. This would include representatives of statutory bodies such as the ESB, Waterways Ireland, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Monitoring equipment has already been installed in the river Shannon at Athlone in order to record discharge,” the SEA says.
Data collection equipment is also to be installed at a number of other locations to gather long-term data on water levels
“For the lower river Shannon (below Parteen weir), the current hydrological regime should be preserved to ensure that existing habitats that are dependent on inundation are maintained,” it says, referring to habitats in the Shannon callows.
An ecological study is recommended in order to examine the possibilities for ecological design, fisheries and habitat recreation for the storage area at Garryhinch, Co Laois.
All above-ground facilities are to be designed “in sympathy with the surrounding landscape”.
Dublin City Council will also have to make an agreement with the ESB that would “include details on the compensation for the loss of power generation” at the long-established Árd na Crusha hydroelectric station as a result of taking water from Lough Derg.
The council has sought consultations with An Bord Pleanála with a view to lodging a planning application for the overall project in 18 months, under the Strategic Infrastructure Act.
Processing the application could take up to two years.
The water supply plan and environmental statement are on view at the planning counters of Dublin’s local authorities as well as Kildare, Meath, Wicklow, Laois, Offaly, North Tipperary, Westmeath, Galway, Limerick and Clare county councils from now until November 1st.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Showing posts with label dublin water supply. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dublin water supply. Show all posts
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
Plans unveiled for €540m eco-park and reservoir to store Shannon water
BORD na Móna has warned that approval for the development of a massive man-made reservoir in the midlands to store water drained from the Shannon is essential to guarantee future water supplies for the greater Dublin area.
The semi-state body yesterday revealed details of its controversial €540 million eco-park, to be located in Co Laois, which would incorporate a 700-acre reservoir on the site of a former bog as well as a range of water leisure facilities.
They are proposing to extract just over 2.2% of the total water flow from the Shannon at high-water levels from a location north of Lough Derg as part of a project, which will need the support of both the Department of the Environment and Dublin City Council.
It plans to store the water in the reservoir to be built on the site of a depleted bog at Garryhinch, located between Portarlington and Mountmellick, about 65km from the Shannon, before being pumped onwards to consumers in the greater Dublin area.
Bord na Móna chief executive Gabriel D’Arcy admitted the issue was of "vital national interest", but could be "emotive and divisive".
However, he stressed that it represented a great opportunity to create jobs and other benefits in the area.
He also pointed out that the Shannon is technically flooded for eight months each year on average.
It is estimated the project could create 1,000 jobs during its construction phase and up to 150 jobs in the longer term.
Bord na Móna director of strategic infrastructure, Colm Ó Gogáin told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Energy, whose members will visit Garryhinch today, that approval for the project would be required soon if it was to become operational by 2020.
Mr Ó Gogáin said the ability of local authorities to supply water to Dublin was reaching critical point due to increased demand as well as the fact that 28% of water currently supplied was lost through leakage.
He claimed Dublin City Council has already issued water-shortage warnings this year as levels had fallen near record lows.
Mr Ó Gogáin said the use of the reservoir as an interim storage point for 15 million cubic metres of water was essential to ensure the sustainability of water supplies for the greater Dublin area as well as Laois, Offaly and Westmeath.
Responding to concern expressed by some TDs and senators, he explained that the current proposal was to extract four cubic metres of water per second when the river’s average flow rate is 180 cubic metres per second.
Mr Ó Gogáin described the alternative of desalination as "the option of last choice" due to its higher capital and operational costs.
Clare Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley said he was "absolutely opposed" to the project as it would have a negative impact on the existing infrastructure of the Shannon as a leisure amenity. He accused Bord na Móna of engaging in spin by presenting their proposals as a tourist project.
James Bannon, a Longford Fine Gael TD, said his constituents believed any extraction of water from the Shannon represented a "gross violation".
Meanwhile, Bord na Móna also openly declared its interest in taking on the role of a new national water authority proposed in both the Programme for Government and the EU/IMF bailout agreement.
Irish Examiner
www.buckplanning.ie
The semi-state body yesterday revealed details of its controversial €540 million eco-park, to be located in Co Laois, which would incorporate a 700-acre reservoir on the site of a former bog as well as a range of water leisure facilities.
They are proposing to extract just over 2.2% of the total water flow from the Shannon at high-water levels from a location north of Lough Derg as part of a project, which will need the support of both the Department of the Environment and Dublin City Council.
It plans to store the water in the reservoir to be built on the site of a depleted bog at Garryhinch, located between Portarlington and Mountmellick, about 65km from the Shannon, before being pumped onwards to consumers in the greater Dublin area.
Bord na Móna chief executive Gabriel D’Arcy admitted the issue was of "vital national interest", but could be "emotive and divisive".
However, he stressed that it represented a great opportunity to create jobs and other benefits in the area.
He also pointed out that the Shannon is technically flooded for eight months each year on average.
It is estimated the project could create 1,000 jobs during its construction phase and up to 150 jobs in the longer term.
Bord na Móna director of strategic infrastructure, Colm Ó Gogáin told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Energy, whose members will visit Garryhinch today, that approval for the project would be required soon if it was to become operational by 2020.
Mr Ó Gogáin said the ability of local authorities to supply water to Dublin was reaching critical point due to increased demand as well as the fact that 28% of water currently supplied was lost through leakage.
He claimed Dublin City Council has already issued water-shortage warnings this year as levels had fallen near record lows.
Mr Ó Gogáin said the use of the reservoir as an interim storage point for 15 million cubic metres of water was essential to ensure the sustainability of water supplies for the greater Dublin area as well as Laois, Offaly and Westmeath.
Responding to concern expressed by some TDs and senators, he explained that the current proposal was to extract four cubic metres of water per second when the river’s average flow rate is 180 cubic metres per second.
Mr Ó Gogáin described the alternative of desalination as "the option of last choice" due to its higher capital and operational costs.
Clare Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley said he was "absolutely opposed" to the project as it would have a negative impact on the existing infrastructure of the Shannon as a leisure amenity. He accused Bord na Móna of engaging in spin by presenting their proposals as a tourist project.
James Bannon, a Longford Fine Gael TD, said his constituents believed any extraction of water from the Shannon represented a "gross violation".
Meanwhile, Bord na Móna also openly declared its interest in taking on the role of a new national water authority proposed in both the Programme for Government and the EU/IMF bailout agreement.
Irish Examiner
www.buckplanning.ie
Midlands bog 'ideal location' for Dublin water supply reservoir
A BOG on the Laois-Offaly border is “an ideal location” for a proposed eco-park and reservoir, a member of the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment said yesterday.
Labour TD Kevin Humphreys was speaking after visiting the proposed site of the €560 million project with other committee members.
The committee was briefed by Bord na Móna on plans to build a reservoir in Co Offaly to supply drinking water from Lough Derg, on the river Shannon, to Dublin.
Committee members asked questions about the viability and environmental sustainability of the project.
The TDs visited the site of the proposed water storage reservoir at Garryhinch on the Laois-Offaly border, and toured amenity lakes and parkland already developed by Bord na Móna at Lough Boora Parklands, Co Offaly. The delegation was led by committee chairman and Labour TD Ciaran Lynch, along with committee deputies James Bannon (Fine Gael), Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Fine Gael), Kevin Humphreys (Labour) and Brian Stanley (Sinn Féin).
“I believe it is an ideal location for a reservoir to provide water to Dublin for the next 70 years. Bord na Móna clearly has a well-researched plan that should be brought into the planning process as soon as possible to address the lack of a strategic reserve of water for the Dublin region,” Mr Humphreys said.
The project is opposed by some members of the committee, including Fianna Fáil TD for Clare Timmy Dooley, who has described it as “daft and entirely uneconomical”.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Labour TD Kevin Humphreys was speaking after visiting the proposed site of the €560 million project with other committee members.
The committee was briefed by Bord na Móna on plans to build a reservoir in Co Offaly to supply drinking water from Lough Derg, on the river Shannon, to Dublin.
Committee members asked questions about the viability and environmental sustainability of the project.
The TDs visited the site of the proposed water storage reservoir at Garryhinch on the Laois-Offaly border, and toured amenity lakes and parkland already developed by Bord na Móna at Lough Boora Parklands, Co Offaly. The delegation was led by committee chairman and Labour TD Ciaran Lynch, along with committee deputies James Bannon (Fine Gael), Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Fine Gael), Kevin Humphreys (Labour) and Brian Stanley (Sinn Féin).
“I believe it is an ideal location for a reservoir to provide water to Dublin for the next 70 years. Bord na Móna clearly has a well-researched plan that should be brought into the planning process as soon as possible to address the lack of a strategic reserve of water for the Dublin region,” Mr Humphreys said.
The project is opposed by some members of the committee, including Fianna Fáil TD for Clare Timmy Dooley, who has described it as “daft and entirely uneconomical”.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Friday, 29 April 2011
Protest grows to stop Dublin 'plundering' Shannon water
A GROUP opposed to controversial plans by Dublin City Council to extract massive volumes of water from the river Shannon to boost dwindling supplies in the capital has stepped up its campaign.
The Shannon Protection Alliance is to establish another branch of its group at a public meeting in Dromineer, Co Tipperary, this week. The organisation has already established branches in Athlone and Limerick as part of its ongoing campaign to block plans to extract water from the Shannon at a rate of 350 million litres per day from Lough Derg.
The alliance says this roughly equates to the amount of water which leaks from the Dublin water delivery system.
The group has called on the Dublin local authority to fix the leaks and conserve water instead of “plundering” the Shannon, which supplies 1.5 million people living in its catchment area.
In July 2010, consultants RPS and Veolia recommended a €470 million scheme which would see the water pumped to the Dublin region and commuter towns along the way via a reservoir and treatment plant near Portarlington. The original plan was to extract the water from Lough Ree but following massive political pressure from local communities in the Athlone area, the plan was changed and Lough Derg became the favoured option.
Alliance members are worried for the future of the Shannon and its communities, and believe the controversial scheme is unnecessary and if built would prove to be “an expensive white elephant”.
“Its proposers use unrealistic Celtic Tiger-era water demand forecasts to justify it. Greater Dublin’s realistic needs can be met by a combination of fixing leaks currently wasting 30 per cent of treated water, tapping proven local groundwater resources, applying demand management measures such as metering/charging, reusing grey water and harvesting rainwater,” group spokesman Joc Sanders said.
The alliance plans to campaign against the proposals through the media, political institutions, An Bord Pleanála and European institutions, Mr Sanders added.
According to alliance chairman Gerry Siney, the controversial plans have not considered the needs of communities living along the Shannon.
“The future needs of Shannon-side communities for water have neither been quantified nor considered. Good water supplies are as important as airport and road infrastructure in attracting IT, bio-tech and pharma industries – we dare not risk the future economic development of our midwest region. Why not move new development to the water resource, rather than the other way around?” he asked. “We don’t seek to selfishly deny Dublin water, but the current proposals are not the right way to go,” he added.
The meeting will take place this Thursday, April 28th at the Lough Derg Yacht Club in Dromineer.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The Shannon Protection Alliance is to establish another branch of its group at a public meeting in Dromineer, Co Tipperary, this week. The organisation has already established branches in Athlone and Limerick as part of its ongoing campaign to block plans to extract water from the Shannon at a rate of 350 million litres per day from Lough Derg.
The alliance says this roughly equates to the amount of water which leaks from the Dublin water delivery system.
The group has called on the Dublin local authority to fix the leaks and conserve water instead of “plundering” the Shannon, which supplies 1.5 million people living in its catchment area.
In July 2010, consultants RPS and Veolia recommended a €470 million scheme which would see the water pumped to the Dublin region and commuter towns along the way via a reservoir and treatment plant near Portarlington. The original plan was to extract the water from Lough Ree but following massive political pressure from local communities in the Athlone area, the plan was changed and Lough Derg became the favoured option.
Alliance members are worried for the future of the Shannon and its communities, and believe the controversial scheme is unnecessary and if built would prove to be “an expensive white elephant”.
“Its proposers use unrealistic Celtic Tiger-era water demand forecasts to justify it. Greater Dublin’s realistic needs can be met by a combination of fixing leaks currently wasting 30 per cent of treated water, tapping proven local groundwater resources, applying demand management measures such as metering/charging, reusing grey water and harvesting rainwater,” group spokesman Joc Sanders said.
The alliance plans to campaign against the proposals through the media, political institutions, An Bord Pleanála and European institutions, Mr Sanders added.
According to alliance chairman Gerry Siney, the controversial plans have not considered the needs of communities living along the Shannon.
“The future needs of Shannon-side communities for water have neither been quantified nor considered. Good water supplies are as important as airport and road infrastructure in attracting IT, bio-tech and pharma industries – we dare not risk the future economic development of our midwest region. Why not move new development to the water resource, rather than the other way around?” he asked. “We don’t seek to selfishly deny Dublin water, but the current proposals are not the right way to go,” he added.
The meeting will take place this Thursday, April 28th at the Lough Derg Yacht Club in Dromineer.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Bog in Offaly chosen as proposed site for reservoir
A 500-ACRE bog in Co Offaly has been chosen as the proposed site for an “eco water park and reservoir” as part of Dublin City Council’s plan to pump water from the river Shannon.
The council is proposing a €540 million, Government-funded project which would supply 350 million litres of water a day to the Dublin region.
In a move likely to meet strong opposition from west of Ireland interests, the council is seeking to source water from the Shannon to serve the capital’s drinking water needs for the next 70 years.
The council says the project would also supply water to residents and businesses in Meath, Wicklow, Kildare, Offaly and Westmeath. In a statement yesterday, the council said the project would create an “innovative water based eco-park with fishing, boating, cycling, water and leisure sports” in the midlands.
It said 1,000 construction jobs would be created alongside an unspecified number of long-term tourism and recreation jobs in the midlands. Consultants for the council, RPS and Veolia Water, envisage the water being taken from the Shannon at Lough Derg during periods of flood and high flows only.
The water would be stored at the new “eco park” at Garryhinch Bog, from where it could be pumped to Dublin or even back to the Shannon to be used during periods of low flows, according to the consultants.
The Shannon is subject to considerable flooding in winter but navigation hazards are frequently exposed in times of drought.
The average amount of water to be taken from Lough Derg under the proposal is 2 per cent. Consultants say this water currently flows into the Atlantic ocean every day.
Bord na Móna has expressed support for the project which is seen as being in line with its new corporate strategy. The board has recently received approval for new wind generated energy to supply up to 45,000 homes and the consultants claim this could be used to power the proposed midlands eco park. Details of the plans to take water from the Shannon are to be presented to the city council’s strategic policy committee on Thursday.
An environmental impact statement process will be undertaken and a planning application submitted to An Bord Pleanála, which will make the final decision on the project. The project does not require the permission of any local authority in the Shannon region, but would be dependent on funding from the Government.
Shannon Water Protection Alliance chairman Martin McEnroe said yesterday plans would be considered and given a measured response. But he said it made little sense under any national spatial strategy to locate factories and people on the east coast and to pump resources there to follow them.
“What happens if someone wants to open a factory in Athlone and there isn’t the capacity in the water system there” he asked. “This looks like it will prevent people remaining in the midlands where they grew up.”
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The council is proposing a €540 million, Government-funded project which would supply 350 million litres of water a day to the Dublin region.
In a move likely to meet strong opposition from west of Ireland interests, the council is seeking to source water from the Shannon to serve the capital’s drinking water needs for the next 70 years.
The council says the project would also supply water to residents and businesses in Meath, Wicklow, Kildare, Offaly and Westmeath. In a statement yesterday, the council said the project would create an “innovative water based eco-park with fishing, boating, cycling, water and leisure sports” in the midlands.
It said 1,000 construction jobs would be created alongside an unspecified number of long-term tourism and recreation jobs in the midlands. Consultants for the council, RPS and Veolia Water, envisage the water being taken from the Shannon at Lough Derg during periods of flood and high flows only.
The water would be stored at the new “eco park” at Garryhinch Bog, from where it could be pumped to Dublin or even back to the Shannon to be used during periods of low flows, according to the consultants.
The Shannon is subject to considerable flooding in winter but navigation hazards are frequently exposed in times of drought.
The average amount of water to be taken from Lough Derg under the proposal is 2 per cent. Consultants say this water currently flows into the Atlantic ocean every day.
Bord na Móna has expressed support for the project which is seen as being in line with its new corporate strategy. The board has recently received approval for new wind generated energy to supply up to 45,000 homes and the consultants claim this could be used to power the proposed midlands eco park. Details of the plans to take water from the Shannon are to be presented to the city council’s strategic policy committee on Thursday.
An environmental impact statement process will be undertaken and a planning application submitted to An Bord Pleanála, which will make the final decision on the project. The project does not require the permission of any local authority in the Shannon region, but would be dependent on funding from the Government.
Shannon Water Protection Alliance chairman Martin McEnroe said yesterday plans would be considered and given a measured response. But he said it made little sense under any national spatial strategy to locate factories and people on the east coast and to pump resources there to follow them.
“What happens if someone wants to open a factory in Athlone and there isn’t the capacity in the water system there” he asked. “This looks like it will prevent people remaining in the midlands where they grew up.”
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Piped floodwater proposed for Dublin
ONE OF the options being considered in a major study of Dublin's water supply would involve taking water from the Shannon when the river is in flood and piping it to a large reservoir in the midlands.
Consultants RPS Veolia are looking at the possibility of taking water from Lough Ree and Lough Derg in winter and storing it in a reservoir on cutaway bog near Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath, from where it would be piped to Dublin.
This may emerge as the "preferred option" in the study - due to be completed before the end of 2009 - as it would overcome fears that the Shannon lakes would be "drained" if the water was simply piped to Dublin directly.
Last month, objectors from the Shannon catchment area marched to Leinster House to protest against proposals by Dublin City Council to abstract 350 million litres of water a day from the river's two largest lakes to serve consumers in the capital.
The march was organised by the Shannon Protection Alliance, a coalition of objectors from the catchment area set up in April 2007 after the city council identified Lough Ree as the most likely source from which Dublin would need to draw extra water.
The council's water engineers believe that the capital will require such a new source by 2015 to cater for its growing population.
However, the alliance is adamant that the plan to take it from the Shannon would be an "ecological disaster".
There are also fears locally, particularly around Lough Ree, that water levels in the lake would fall drastically, damaging its principal money-spinner - leisure boating on the Shannon. The Shannon Regional Fisheries Organisation also opposes the plan.
However, Dublin City Council has maintained it would only draw off 2 per cent of the volume of water in the river in any year. If this could be confined to the times of year when the Shannon is in flood, the environmental impact would be less.
The direct piping of water from Lough Ree to Dublin was provisionally costed at €550 million- €600 million. No estimate is available for the additional cost of building a large reservoir in the midlands, though this is likely to be substantial.
Domestic water use in Ireland, at 160 litres per capita a day is among the highest in Europe. Economists have attributed this to the absence of tariffs based on consumption. Water charges were abolished in 1997.
With 83 per cent of drinking water coming from surface water, Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said that water shortages "will be a key issue that Ireland will have to grapple with in the future", mainly because of the impacts of climate change.
The huge capital cost of providing a new supply for Dublin at a time of severe budgetary constraints will obviously pose problems for the Government. However, there is little appetite among Ministers to reintroduce water charges to fund it.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Consultants RPS Veolia are looking at the possibility of taking water from Lough Ree and Lough Derg in winter and storing it in a reservoir on cutaway bog near Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath, from where it would be piped to Dublin.
This may emerge as the "preferred option" in the study - due to be completed before the end of 2009 - as it would overcome fears that the Shannon lakes would be "drained" if the water was simply piped to Dublin directly.
Last month, objectors from the Shannon catchment area marched to Leinster House to protest against proposals by Dublin City Council to abstract 350 million litres of water a day from the river's two largest lakes to serve consumers in the capital.
The march was organised by the Shannon Protection Alliance, a coalition of objectors from the catchment area set up in April 2007 after the city council identified Lough Ree as the most likely source from which Dublin would need to draw extra water.
The council's water engineers believe that the capital will require such a new source by 2015 to cater for its growing population.
However, the alliance is adamant that the plan to take it from the Shannon would be an "ecological disaster".
There are also fears locally, particularly around Lough Ree, that water levels in the lake would fall drastically, damaging its principal money-spinner - leisure boating on the Shannon. The Shannon Regional Fisheries Organisation also opposes the plan.
However, Dublin City Council has maintained it would only draw off 2 per cent of the volume of water in the river in any year. If this could be confined to the times of year when the Shannon is in flood, the environmental impact would be less.
The direct piping of water from Lough Ree to Dublin was provisionally costed at €550 million- €600 million. No estimate is available for the additional cost of building a large reservoir in the midlands, though this is likely to be substantial.
Domestic water use in Ireland, at 160 litres per capita a day is among the highest in Europe. Economists have attributed this to the absence of tariffs based on consumption. Water charges were abolished in 1997.
With 83 per cent of drinking water coming from surface water, Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said that water shortages "will be a key issue that Ireland will have to grapple with in the future", mainly because of the impacts of climate change.
The huge capital cost of providing a new supply for Dublin at a time of severe budgetary constraints will obviously pose problems for the Government. However, there is little appetite among Ministers to reintroduce water charges to fund it.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
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