This article is from page 2 of the 2008-02-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
after the meeting, former wa- ter scheme chairman Martin Knox accused Clare County Council of
being disingenuous in offering to help the committee solve the prob- lems which have now arisen with the scheme.
“It 1s hardly necessary for Clare County Council to state that they are not involved in the day-to-day run- ning of the scheme but it needs to be said that they had significant input into the design of the plant.
“When their help was required at the design stage, it was counter-pro- ductive. The process was designed to fail,” he said.
“The plant was designed around a ridiculously low baseline demand of 180 cubic metres a day when the quantity should have been much greater. To future-proof the plant,
our baseline demand estimate was 360 cubic metres a day. The Depart- ment of the Environment, the client’s representative and the county coun- cil ignored our contributions.” ‘Domestic users on the scheme pay for water. This is inequitable as do- mestic users in towns and city areas do not. Even if the plant could deliver the volumes required, the contractor will put a surcharge on every litre consumed above a limit of 288,000 litres a day,’ Mr Knox explained. ‘“Killone group water scheme is run by volunteers and has been run by volunteers for the past 30 years. The Department of the Environment funded the current project under a design, build and operate process.
‘The cost of the project to the tax- payer was almost €900,000 and the Killone group water scheme contrib- uted almost €60,000 in addition to the cost of the site. The executive committee took legal advice and, as a result, refused to sign the contract. We correctly predicted that the vol- umes would be inadequate.
“We eventually signed the contract under duress following a threat from the county council to withdraw fund- ing,” he said.
Calling on the council to clarify the nature of the “help” now being of- fered, Mr Knox said the plant needs further capital expenditure and a new contract to meet the requirements of the community for the next 20 years.