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Major Progress Being Made by Sligo's Rural Water Programme

(This is an edited version of a feature published in a recent issue of Group Water Scheme News).

An Overview of Progress under the Rural Water Programme Representatives of Sligo’s group water schemes were present in County Hall recently to oversee the signing of contracts worth €5.5 million. Over the next 18 months twelve privately-sourced group schemes through-out the county will benefit from the construction of new Design Build Operate (DBO) treatment plants, which will deliver a quality water supply that meets National and EU standards. GWS News takes a closer look at Sligo’s excellent Rural Water programme.

Sligo Rural Water Liaison Officer, Kathleen McTiernan is a passionate advocate of the rights of rural communities to quality drinking water, Kathleen has worked closely with the county’s group water sector from the early days of the Rural Water Programme and understands, more than most, the contribution the sector has made to life in rural Sligo. More than that, as one of those centrally involved in the evolution of the Sligo Rural Water Strategic Plan, she knew that the groundwork had been laid to comprehensively deal with any outstanding difficulties.

Sligo is one of the counties taking a lead in resolving the problem of poor drinking water quality, a fact not always apparent from the national media coverage. However the partners to the Sligo Rural Water Programme stuck with the agreed game-plan and the DBO signing ceremony at the offices of the County Council in April was, in some respects, a vindication of their persistence. After many late-night meetings in local halls and after several years preparatory work by T.J O’Connor & Associates and Jennings O’Donovan & Partners, (clients’ representatives for the northwest and southeast DBO bundles respectively) there was no mistaking the sense of occasion as Seamus Crickley of Treatment Systems Ltd. signed contracts with Sligo County Manager, Hubert Kearns.

Credit

Chairperson of the local Rural Water Monitoring Committee, councillor Gerry Murray, said that while credit for the success of Sligo’s Rural Water Programme lies with a number of people those present acknowledged the central role played by Kathleen McTiernan.

Commending group scheme activists for giving of their time so generously and so effectively for the good of their communities, he reminded those present of how far the county had come under the Rural Water Programme through an active partnership between the council the group schemes sector and the Department. ‘It is hard to credit that when Sligo County Council embarked of its Rural Water Programme in 1997, we received and allocation of £101,300 for that year. In 2005 this figure had grown to €7million. ’

Attending the signing of the contracts were Jim Ganley, Assistant Principal Officer Department of the Environment, Louis Gilmartin, National DBO Project Manager and Sean Clerkin representing the National Federation of Group Water Schemes.

A marked feature of the event was the presence of committee members from virtually all of the group schemes that are participating in the Sligo DBO bundles, a reminder that the huge investment in the coming months and years is aimed at ensuring that the communities they serve have fully treated drinking water in compliance with EU and national standards.

OVERVIEW OF SCHEMES

Beltra

Beltra GWS is typical of most of Ireland’s group water schemes. Established in 1970 through the efforts of a dedicated local committee and with local labour, it has relied since then on a spring water source donated to the scheme by Marty Kerrigan.

Scheme chairperson and maintenance man, Martin Corcoran explains that the scheme was actually designed by the ESB and that the contribution back in the early days was £50 for a farm and £25 for a domestic connection. Water was installed, with a sink included!

Since its foundation, Beltra GWS has been pumping untreated water direct to local homes (at no cost to the consumer) and to farms (at €80 per annum).

Through careful management, the scheme has survived, but Martin Corcoran is the first to recognise that upgrading is needed and that this will have to be paid for.

Upgrade

The scheme registered as a cooperative last year and purchased a site for the new treatment plant. They are in the process of installing 3-phase electricity at a cost of €4,000.

In addition to meeting their 15% share of civil works costs, the Provision of treated water (as part of the northwest DBO Bundle) will involve ongoing Operation and Maintenance charges and there will be continued day-to-day maintenance and general management costs. As it prepares to meet these financial challenges, Beltra GWS committee is confident of local support their priority will be to keep costs to a minimum and to introduce source protection measures to protect a spring that is clearly vulnerable to pollution.

Castlebaldwin

The second largest scheme in the county, Castlebaldwin GWS has 300 domestic connections and almost 40 miles of network covering a large area of south east Sligo. This is a relatively new GWS. Although organisation began in 1977, it was the early 1980’s before the scheme was up and running, according to the current chairperson, Frank Meehan.

As with several other group schemes in this part of Sligo, Castlebaldwin extracts water from Lough Arrow. This is pumped to three holding tanks in upland areas before being gravity fed to local homes and farms.  Pressure was poor on a remote section of the scheme and this was revamped in 1996 when a reservoir was installed to service the 20 homes involved. From a high vantage point on Carrowkeel, Frank Meehan pointed out that, as part of DBO advance works, the extensive scheme is to have a new rising main from the intake works on the lough to the reservoirs. Work on this 3.5 km pipeline has recently commenced. A new 100,000 gallon reservoir is also to be installed. Like Beltra, domestic consumers on Castlebaldwin GWS pay nothing for their water supply at present. It is planned to finance the 15% on the civil works through a local levy and an energetic committee is in place to raise the necessary finance.

Benbulben

Nestling at the foot of majestic Benbulben is a group scheme formed in 1969 to cater for the drinking water needs of 30 families. Until then houses in the area received their water supply from local streams and wells and a committee of local activists decided that it was time to provide a piped water supply to the area which stretches a distance of a few miles from the base of the mountain of the famous village of Drumcliffe.

Water drawn from a spring on the mountain was gravity-fed to local homes. In its first years the scheme was able to cope with the existing demand at that time but was unprepared for a growth in the local population.

According to committee member Noel Meehan, the early 1980s the pressure for housing in the area was mounting, not least from the children of the original scheme members. To address this demand, the scheme closed for a period to allow the laying of a new trunk main and the provision of additional reservoir capacity.

With this expansion, (which was spearheaded by current treasurer, Ciarán Tiernan), it has been able to accommodate a lot of family members wishing to settle in their native locality.

A proud boast of this GWS is that apart from the brief period in the 1980s when they expanded the scheme, their members never been without water!

Castletown

If Benbulben is amongst the oldest schemes, then neighbouring Castletown GWS is surely the youngest. Formed just 3 years ago, it is in a district bounded by Benbulben and Drum East GWS.

The scheme emerged from an approach by local man, Seamus Waters to Sligo County Council for an individual request. The council suggested the establishment of a group water scheme to cater for the entire community. At a subsequent public the community backed the proposal, but the cost of supplying some outlying homes was prohibitive. An increase in grant aid to 85% changed all that and today the scheme supplies all 68 homes in the locality, as well as local farms.

With a 6km network and new reservoir already in place, the scheme is awaiting construction of its DBO treatment facility.

Partnership

Sligo County Council’ Liaison Officer Kathleen McTiernan sees the active partnership of the Local Authority and the various communities as the key to the success of the Rural Water Programme. ‘We also enjoy a great working relationship wih the Group Scheme Federation and the Department of the Environment, and this has underpinned much of the good work taking place across county Sligo at the moment.’