The Environmental Protection Agency has warned that the level of raw sewage that is pumped into Ireland’s waterways every day is “unacceptable.”

The agency said untreated sewage from 36 towns and villages – the equivalent of 77,000 people – is released into the environment every day.

Half of the raw sewage comes from Arklow, Cobh and Kilmore Quay.

It found that the wastewater treatment facilities at 21 of Ireland’s large towns and cities – including Dublin and Cork – do not meet EU standards.

Public health

Dr Tom Ryan, Director of the EPAs Office of Environmental Enforcement (OEE) said there have been some improvements in recent years.

He warned however that the pace at which Irish Water is upgrading the country’s wastewater treatment infrastructure is too slow.

“Inadequately treated waste water can pollute our environment and is a risk to people’s health,” he said.

“We are seeing repeated delays in providing treatment for many areas and it is not acceptable that 13 towns and villages will still have no waste water treatment by the end of 2021.

“Irish Water must speed up its delivery of key infrastructure.”

Upgrades

Irish Water Head of Asset Management Seán Laffey, said the utility is making good progress on wastewater upgrades.

“We welcome the EPA report,” he said. “It is a very good benchmark for us and while it does highlight some projects that are not proceeding as quickly as we would like, for a variety of reasons, that really is not to take away for the tremendous progress we have made since 2014 on wastewater.

“When Irish Water was formed, there were 44 locations around Ireland which had raw sewerage discharging into our seas and rivers.

“14 now have fully-functioning wastewater treatment plants.”

The EPA report examines how Ireland’s wastewater treatment network performed last year.

It found:

• 57 areas where waste water is the sole environmental threat to rivers, lakes and coastal waters.
• 15 areas – ten in County cork – where wastewater pollution is threatening protect critically endangered freshwater pearl mussels and shellfish habitats.
• Three beaches where wastewater is leading to poor quality bathing waters – Merrion Strand and Sandymount Strand in Dublin, and Clifden Beach in Galway.
• Eight large urban areas with inadequate wastewater collection systems.

OEE Programme Manager Andy Fanning said: “The underlying problem in many cases is a lack of adequate treatment infrastructure. “

“This is a legacy issue which must be solved by investment in new treatment systems.

“However, some towns that already have the necessary treatment in place did not perform as well as they should.

“We require Irish Water to continue to improve how it operates and maintains waste water treatment systems to get the best performance from them.”

The EPA is also warning that Irish Water must significantly improve the information it publishes on the condition and performance of public sewers in order to “help focus upgrade works where they are most needed.”