Madam, - The members of Galway County Council seem to have learned nothing from the water crisis earlier this year.
Cryptosporidium in our local water supply was the result of two things. In the county council's area, the failure to enforce proper planning resulted in human faeces (among other pollutants) being washed into the water supply.
In the city council's area, failure to treat this dirty water allowed the faeces-linked parasites into our taps. The city learned how to treat the water. The county learned nothing.
When presented last week with a draft development plan for Barna that proposed a 10-metre buffer zone to protect the waters of the Trusky and Liberty streams, the county councillors voted to reduce it to six metres.
They did this knowing that the streams in Barna are currently polluted. They did this despite the recommendation of the strategic environmental assessment that underpins the plan for Barna. They did this despite the fact that under the European Communities (Water Policy) Regulations 2003, all public bodies, including Galway County Council, are required to co-ordinate their policies and operations so as to bring polluted water supplies up to good status by 2015.
On this evidence, Galway County Council is unfit to manage water anywhere. Meanwhile we all lose through polluted waters. We lose through sickness. We lose through loss of visitors. And we may lose money through being fined for failure to implement EU law.
There is still a little hope on this issue, since the plan is still in draft and not due for formal adoption until November. Perhaps the councillors will change their minds. They ought to. - Yours, etc,
DENIS HEALY, Devon Park, Salthill, Galway.