THE DEPARTMENT of the Environment’s water services programme does not facilitate urgent action when contamination risks to drinking water are first detected, according to a new report.
The investigation into Galway’s cryptosporidium outbreak of 2007 is also critical of aspects of Galway City Council’s communication and leadership but says its overall response was “generally sound”.
The Institution of Public Administration (IPA) review for the council says public confidence in the council’s ability to provide safe drinking water was seriously eroded. It believes some of the adverse effects could have been avoided before the outbreak occurred and during the crisis between March and August, 2007.
The failure to convene an urgent briefing of city councillors who would then have been in a stronger position to reassure the public is also highlighted.
Boil water notices were issued for Galway city and county following detection of the cryptosporidium parasite shortly before the St Patrick’s weekend in 2007, and were only lifted five months later .
About 2,000 people were affected by the serious gastro- intestinal illness, cryptosporiosis, and a small number of cases still have “continuing complications”.
In September 2007, e-coli contamination occurred in the Knocknacarra supply during maintenance works by a contractor.
The report confirms that inadequate treatment at the old Terryland waterworks and overload at the new Terryland plant were identified as far back as 1998 by HGL O’Connor consultant engineers.
Steps were taken to increase supply from the county, drawn from the Luimnagh treatment works near Tuam, while approval for construction of a new reservoir was approved by the city council in 2000. However, it was December 2002 before contract documents relating to an upgrade of Luimnagh were submitted to the council. The report records the progress of contract documents and tenders before signature of the Luimnagh upgrade contract in April 2006.
At that stage, unprecedented growth had seen demand for water outstrip previous predictions, and in February 2004 a risk assessment of the combined old and new Terryland plans classified the overall supply as of “very high risk”.
Failure to decommission old Terryland earlier was a “critical factor” in the subsequent serious contamination, it says.
The report notes that for a variety of governance reasons, the Department of Environment’s Water Services Investment Programme “does not easily facilitate . . . urgent remedial action”.
It is also critical of progress in dealing with water leakages in the city and county, and says that there was a lack of clarity between Galway city and county councils on the strategy for upgrading Luimnagh to substitute for old Terryland. It recommends initiation of a specific action plan and a risk management procedure for responding to such incidents, and says the department and relevant local authorities need to work in partnership in relation to high-risk supplies.
The Mayor of Galway, councillor Pádraig Conneely (FG), said he had been critical of the report’s independence when it was commissioned, as two of its three authors are retired senior local authority officials.
He said the department’s water services programme is over-bureaucratic and cannot respond to prevent crises.
