This article is from page 10 of the 2005-11-08 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 10 JPG
CLEAN drinking water must be supplied to the residents of En- nis in the event of another boil notice being issued.
That was the call being made last night by members of Ennis Town Council who are seeking a guarantee from the County Man- ager that more will be done for the residents in the event of an- other boil notice being imposed on the water supply for Ennis and its surrounding environs.
“It is so serious at this stage that a guarantee should be sought” said Mayor Frankie Neylon at Monday’s meeting. Cllr Neylon went on to add that providing a suitable solution can be arrived at, a temporary water filtration system should be installed while the town waits for a new €13 million water treatment facil- ity due to be constructed in two years time.
The Council was debating the issue following a motion tabled by Councilors Donal O’Beara (GP) and Johnny Flynn (FG),
calling for the continuing un- acceptable quality of Ennis drinking water be declared an emergency and that the County Manager use his available pow- ers. “The supply is unsuitable for the weakest in our society, that is children and the elderly, while others can take their chances if they want, is the approach sug- gested by the Council. This is totally unacceptable” said Cllr O’Beara.
Also present at Monday’s meet- ing were members of the newly- formed Campaign Committee who were protesting outside En- nis Town Council about the poor quality of the water supply. The committee was formed after a public meeting was held in En- nis on November 2 to discuss the contamination of the Ennis wa- ter supply. It is composed of lo- cal political representatives and members of the public.
Town Engineer Tom Tiernan said that the council was cur- rently reviewing a number of proposals concerning temporary water filtration systems for the town’s water supply. He said that the Council is treating the prob- lem very urgently but that any solution must be appropriate for the Ennis supply.
Mr. Tiernan stated that the er- ratic nature of supply in Ennis imposes extra complications on any solution and that there very few examples of successful 1m- plementation of temporary wa- ter filtration systems around the world. He revealed one of the proposals before the Council is a Russian system that has yet to be used outside the country and that any proposed project would cost between €600,000 and €1m.