The Government has been urged to hold a public inquiry into the ESB’s decision to release massive volumes of flood water from Inniscarra Dam which led to extensive flooding in western parts of Cork city last month.
The call came from Labour Cllr Michael O’Connell who said the ESB had a number of questions to answer in relation to its handling of the crisis situation which developed when heavier than predicted rainfall fell in the Lee Valley on November 19th last.
The ESB has already defended its handling of the situation at Inniscarra, saying it was forced to up discharge levels to an unprecedented 535 cubic metres per second to avoid uncontrolled flooding as water was entering the catchment at over 800 cubic metres per second.
Cllr O’Connell’s call came during a debate at Cork City Council last night after Cork City Manager, Joe Gavin presented a report on the flooding in the city where some 18,000 householders were left without water after the city’s main pumping station was flooded.
Mr Gavin said the ESB advised the council at 11.30am on November 19th that discharge levels would be increasing from 150 cubic metres per second to over 200 metres per second over the next few hours and could reach up to 300 cubic metres per second later in the day.
At 5pm, the ESB advised the Council levels that discharge levels would now reach 300 cubic metres per second but within 30 minutes, they had revised this and informed the council that discharge levels would exceed the anticipated level of 300 cubic metres per second.
Cork City Council had alerted businesses along the Carrigrohane Road earlier in the day and were monitoring the situation and at 8.40pm, high tides passed without incident and at 9pm, water levels were reducing at Grenville Place on the north channel of the river.
However water levels began to rise again and at 10.10pm, council staff had to contact the ESB when they became concerned about water levels at the Lee Road pumping station and the ESB advised that water levels would now go to 450 cubic metres per second.
By midnight, the Lee Rd pumping station had to be shut down to prevent contamination of the public water supply as the pumping station was being flooded, said Mr Gavin, adding the tide play no part in the flooding and that it was due to unprecedented levels of rainfall.
