This article is from page 8 of the 2008-05-13 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
Underlining the seriousness with which the council viewed the results internally, council official, Maura McNulty emailed County Engineer, Tom Carey; Town Engineer, Tom Tiernan and the HSE’s Acting Direc- tor for Public Health, Tessa Greally to say the results should have been phoned directly by the council’s con- sultants.
The records also show that the fax transmitting the hard-hitting EPA audit report to County Engineer,
Tom Carey was marked “urgent” but was never made public.
During the course of the audit, the council admitted that 17 per cent of the water entering the public water supply was bypassing the membrane toe
The EPA audit concluded that the proportion of inadequately treated water entering the Ennis public water supply was likely to increase when the raw quality was poor.
“The highest proportion of inad- equately treated water enters the dis- tribution network at a time when the risk of contamination of the supply with Cryptosporidium is at its high- ae
“The Drumcliffe water treatment plant is operating under conditions of high risk of contamination of crypt- osporidium.
“The agency is concerned that the practice of bypassing the membrane filtration plant, particularly when raw water conditions are poor, effectively removes the treatment barrier in the Ennis public water supply” the EPA stated.
Responding to the revelations, Dep- uty Joe Carey said it was “one story after another with the water supply in Ennis and the bottom line was that people were not drinking the water.
“The town engineer’s remarks that the council informs the public when they feel it appropriate, is little con- solation to those who fell il] during the most recent outbreak of crypt- osporidium.
‘Had the council been upfront with the EPA findings, and ensured that public safety dominated any other concerns, then that situation may not have arisen.
“Indeed, the fact that the council is nowhere near being in a position to comply with directives, means the public will continue to have Iht- tle confidence in their ability to pro- vide safe, clean drinking water’’,he declared.