FOR FIVE years the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has complained about a lackadaisical approach by local authorities to the production of safe drinking water and the prevention of pollution by badly run sewage works. But little has changed. While the law details offences and penalties for water pollution, the prosecution of individual officials simply does not happen. Responsibility always lies within the system. If the health of the public is to be protected, that situation can no longer be tolerated. We must put personal accountability at the heart of a new-style society.
Modern sewage and water treatment works will, of course, be required. And necessary investment is continuing because of pressure from the EU Commission. It will be a slow process because of a huge backlog and one for which council officials cannot be faulted. But what the EPA has consistently complained about does not involve the expenditure of billions of euro: it requires proper management oversight and the training of staff in the operation of existing treatment plants.
Local authority sewage works are a primary source of water pollution. The staff that oversees them have been found to be inadequately trained. Record-keeping is poor. And an inadequate number of samples are taken. The same holds true for water treatment plants, where poorly trained staff add chemicals to kill E.coli that arises from human and animal faeces. And then there is the more dangerous cryptosporidium that sickened thousands of people in 2007 and brought “boil water” notices to Galway for five months. The EPA has estimated that one-third of public water systems pose a potential risk to human health and should be replaced or upgraded.
Responses by Minister for the Environment John Gormley and by a representative of local authority managers to the report have, predictably, focused on a gradual improvement in water quality because of increased investment in plant and machinery. Failures regarding the treatment and management of water supplies were largely ignored. Yet, those failures can be life-threatening for children and the elderly.
In the past, we threw money at the problem. Now that money is scarce, we must adopt a more rigorous, balanced approach. Proper training of employees and a more accountable system of management would be a good start.