Uisce Éireann has issued a final appeal to people in the greater Dublin area, including parts of Co Wicklow and Co Kildare, to only use water for essential needs over the Bank Holiday weekend as it undertakes its largest ever planned repair job.
A pipeline supplying one third of the region’s drinking water is at risk of failure and will be turned off for 28 hours from 11pm tonight to enable complex repairs to take place.
Uisce Éireann’s Portfolio Manager of Infrastructure Delivery said “about 1,000 customers” will be impacted as they are “supplied directly off the pipeline” undergoing maintenance.
Mark O’Duffy said those affected, located in Co Kildare and south Dublin, have been contacted “and alternative water supplies will be available”.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said that “for the vast majority of the 1.7 million people in the greater Dublin area, they won’t notice any difference to their water supply, provided we get the work done within the 28-hour shutdown window.
Over 220 million litres of water per day flows underground through a huge pipeline from Ballymore Eustace in Co Wicklow to a reservoir at Saggart in Co Dublin.
Watch: Uisce Éireann’s Declan Healy explains why the repair works are necessary
However, Uisce Éireann has found five leaks and a 35-metre section of pipework that must be urgently replaced to prevent a major rupture on the Dublin-Kildare border beside the N7 motorway.
Its engineers have been meticulously planning, preparing the ground, and working ahead for the past nine months to ensure critical repairs can be carried out at the site without disrupting the supply of water to the entire region.
The water pipe is 1.6 metres in diameter, so an average person can stand up inside it.
But the specialists Uisce Éireann is sending in, will need to work very fast inside that small space.
They will have a maximum of 28 hours to fix the five major leaks and replace the damaged 35m section of watermains.
After that the reservoirs serving 1.7 million people would start to run dry and trigger water outages in the greater Dublin area.
Uisce Éireann’s Leak Reduction Programme Manager Declan Healy explained that the company has ensured that all reservoirs in the region will be as full of water as possible to begin with this evening.
But once the Ballymore Eustace to Saggart pipeline is turned off, those full reservoirs will quickly start to drain down.
After 28 hours the levels will have fallen so low that water outages will become inevitable in the Geater Dublin Area if the supply from Ballymore Eustace is not immediately turned back on.
So once the pipeline is switched off, which will happen at 11pm tonight, Uisce Éireann’s engineers and repair teams will in effect be in a race against time.
Mr Healy said: “It is a very complex job, and we have an hour-by-hour programme where we have planned out all the works.
“We have even done dry-runs just to work out all the timings. But with all complex civil engineering projects like this one, things on site can change, and things can go wrong.
“So, we have a really big ask for our customers in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow to help us deliver these works safely and on time.
“Our ask is for them to conserve water over the weekend and throughout the coming week so that the levels of eater in the reservoirs can be brought back up.”
Public urged to avoid non-essential water use
Uisce Éireann said it has chosen to carry out this work over the August Bank Holiday weekend because there is usually a lower demand for water in the Greater Dublin Area at this time.
The purpose of the work is to prevent a catastrophic failure that would lead to widescale outages and disturbance if the damaged watermains were left to rupture.
Head of Water Operations at Uisce Éireann Margaret Attridge said: “We are asking for the public’s help to maintain water levels in the reservoirs for as long as possible; for this weekend we are appealing to everyone to act together and only use water for essential needs.
“Please hold off on filling baths, car washing, power hosing, window washing, filling paddling pools and anything that is not vital.
“Reducing your water use will help maintain or extend water supply during the repairs, for yourself and, importantly, for vulnerable and high-risk users including hospitals and care homes.”
Uisce Éireann said the situation on the ground at the repair site will be monitored closely.
It said it will keep its customers updated about the location and duration of any prolonged impacts, including any supply disruptions, due to the works.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
