This article is from page 56 of the 2013-01-15 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 56 JPG
CLARE County Council has acknowledged that there are still “major problems” with a sewerage plant in Quin.
It emerged yesterday that the council could not proceed with a planned € 800,000 upgrade of the Quin Gardens plant in 2012 due to a lack of funding.
In a report, the council stated that while € 130,000 was spent on improving some priority features of the plant, issues remained with capacity.
The issue was due to come before a meeting of councillors in the Ennis West Electoral Area yesterday. Quin councillor, Sonny Scanlan (FG), tabled a motion requesting an up to date position from the council on the sewerage system in Quin Gardens.
The project consists of the upgrading of the existing wastewater treatment plant including the provision of additional underground tanks and associated site works to increase capacity from 740 population equivalent (pe) to 1400 pe at Quin Gardens, Quin.
In his reply, Sean Ward, Senior Engineer, stated that it was not possible during 2012 to commence a full upgrade of the Quin wastewater treatment plant due to the non-availability of funding.
He continued, “However in August and September of 2012, Clare County Council applied to the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government’s rural water section for approval to divert Quin an amount approximately € 130,000 of our small schemes allocation which could not be spent at its original intended destination because of design issues. We succeeded in our application, and have spent this money on a number of the highest priority items of improvement at the existing plant – including screening, improved aeration and sludge tank. These works will be incorporated in any larger upgrade which we may be able to do in the future i.e. the money spent in 2012 won’t go to waste if we do the bigger job.”
Mr Ward added, “Already we are seeing an improvement in effluent results and a reduction in the costs of sludge management and are confident that odour problems will also be alleviated. We cannot however guarantee that the works done to date will solve all problems in the Quin sewerage system. These works do not add significantly to the spare capacity of the plant to cater for any future developments and there are still major problems of infiltration of stormwater and/or groundwater into the sewers. Furthermore when we receive a wastewater discharge license from the Environmental Protections Agency, we may have to comply with stringent conditions which the works done to date cannot in themselves achieve.
“Therefore we still intend to carry out a major upgrade if funding becomes available, and the works done to date can be regarded as an important advance element of such an upgrade,” he stated.
According to the council report, the proposed development will serve the needs of Quin village and its environs into the future. The report stated that Quin village will have a population of 789 persons by 2017.