Sir, – Your report on traces of cryptosporidium in Dublin’s water system (Home News, March 16th) quotes Dublin city engineer Michael Phillips as saying it is “not uncommon to find minute traces of cryptosporidium in the water system, noting that there were five such finds in Dublin last year and three in January this year.”
Surely one must conclude that this indicates a serious proliferation (from five finds in a year, to three in a month!). The Dublin city engineer, however, seems quite happy with these results.
We will need to wait for the temperature to rise a bit and rainfall conditions to favour the flushing of the cryptosporidium protozoa into the water supply before we can test the city engineer’s optimism on a large percentage of Dublin’s human population. An early study finding on the subject has shown that periods of dry weather followed by periods of wet weather could create optimal conditions for the contamination of drinking water supplies.
Still no talk about source or catchment protection. Tick, tick, tick . . . – Yours, etc,