Louth County Council puts Irish Water 'on notice' over flooding concerns

Louth County Council said that it has formally written to Uisce Éireann (formally and commonly known as Irish Water) in relation to its “grave concerns” about a number of network pumping station and wastewater treatment issues, councillors were informed at the Dundalk Municipal District October meeting.

A number of councillors raised the issue of flooding caused by heavy rains recently in Dundalk and north Louth. Cllr Andrea McKevitt was first to speak on the issue at the October meeting, calling for drains to be cleaned out to help prevent flooding, saying that “the roads are impassable again”.

Replying to Cllr McKevitt, Senior Engineer Paddy Connolly said that he took exception to people saying when there is ponding and surface water on the roads, that drains aren't cleaned out, as it was not true.

Mr Connolly said that it was not true “in the vast majority, the drains have been cleaned out extensively in the Cooley Peninsula”. He went on to say that people have to perhaps start changing their perceptions and start being realistic, because “we had a half inch of rain in two hours, there's very few drainage systems in the world that can cope with that.”

Giving the example of ponding at Roden Place where ponding happened following heavy rains, Mr Connolly said that “by quarter to 12, I was up there and the road was clear because the gullies were cleared last week.”

He added, “the first thing people always say is the gullies weren't cleaned, the drains weren't cleaned – it's not the case” and that a “trojan amount of work on drainage” takes place but the issue was the intensity of rain and that “when you get half an inch of rain in two hours, you're going to get ponding”. Mr Connolly further added that going around the town and Cooley sometime later, the roads were clear of flooding.

Cllr Robert Nash followed up on the issue, saying that he knows the drains around Bay Estate are being cleaned but it was still frustrating to see the amount of water that was in the estate.

Cllr Nash continued, saying that historically the storm pumps in Bay Estate always pumped into the Ramparts River but “the storm pumps are definitely not kicking in” and the “storm pumps at Rice's Bridge are not kicking in, if you look at Rice's Bridge today they didn't kick in.”

He went on to say that Louth County Council has been down at Bay Estate “many times and they just say there's nothing we can do, the pumps haven't kicked in. So are they turning them off. Is it full?” He added, “they did pump into the Blackwater because I remember as a child, the storm pumps going into the Blackwater.”

The Fine Gael councillor went on to comment that “the Ramparts River was built about 700 years ago and was a natural drainage for rain water to go to the sea, and its not being cleaned. I keep going on about it and I hate going on about it, but something really needs to be done. And the same with Bay Estate and Cluan Enda.

“We need to meet with EPS (the company sub-contracted by Uisce Éireann) to discuss how the whole system works in Dundalk during heavy rain and storms.”

Agreeing with Cllr Nash, Cllr Seán Kelly said that the flooding at Rice's Bridge has taken place “two or three times a year since I was a child, I grew up beside it and it's always been an issue. We do need a long term solution.”

Cllr Kelly said that traffic on Castletown road was bad enough without the bridge being flooded and highlighted a situation where a car was stuck under the bridge at 8.00 in the morning the previous week due to flooding, and two men in a van had to drive through the flood to get a child out of the car.

Mr Connolly replied to say that the Coes Road pump station and the Boyle O'Reilly pump station are both controlled by Irish Water and they “don't really have input there". He added that “last week and even this morning I was on to Irish Water to get the pumps switched on”, further adding that they were informed after the last occasion, “a week or so ago that the pumps were overwhelmed”.

Director of Service, Thomas McEvoy, said that in relation to Bay Estate and the Castletown Road, both locations are linked to the pumping station entirely under the control of Irish Water, and that they have sub contracted it to EPS. Mr McEvoy revealed that Louth County Council has written formally to Irish Water, stressing its “grave concerns about a number of network pumping station and wastewater treatment issues that we have, that we believe need to be addressed through capital investment”.

The Director of Service went on to advise the councillors that when meeting Uisce Éireann later this month to raise these issues, further adding that “they have been put on notice by us at an official level in terms of what we believe the concerns are, so any questions you have won't come as a surprise to them”.

Cllr John Reilly said they need to seek clarification if the pumps are deliberately not being switched on when there is a deluge of rain, in order to hold back the water going into the sewage plant, in case there is an overflow, asking if holding back the water was “the lesser of two evils?”

Mr McEvoy replied to Cllr Reilly's query, saying that the Coes Road pumping station is designed with quite a large attenuation area tank, which meant that when there is a heavy deluge of rain, that the water that can't be pumped makes its way into that attenuation area.

Mr McEvoy went on to say that the question arises that when there is a heavy downpour, why is there surface water when the attenuation area should be soaking it up, and “that raises questions over whether the pumps are on clearing the attenuation area or not”, adding that it was a question Uisce Éireann could answer and that “it could we believe be part of the cause as to why there is the surface water.”