Over 45,000 Donegal residents face health risks due to contaminated drinking water supplies, a watchdog has warned.
Donegal has 12 public water supplies identified as ‘at risk’ on the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2017 report issued this week. These supplies have threats to drinking water quality such as Cryptosporidium and Trihalomethanes and are in need of corrective action by Irish Water, the EPA states.
Among those at risk are 26,905 people living in and around Letterkenny, where the improvements should have been finished in 2013.
Other areas are Cashilard, Creeslough, Fintown, Glenties-Ardara, Gortahork-Falcarragh, Greencastle, Owenteskna/Kilcar, Milford-Letterkenny, Pettigo, Portnoo-Narin and Rathmullan.
Four of Donegal’s drinking water supplies are in danger of contamination with Cryptosporidium. Cryptosporidium is a parasite that is found in human or animal waste. If present in drinking water, it can cause persistent diarrhoea.
Eleven have higher levels of trihalomethanes – a harmful by-product of the chlorination process. The EPA say that compounds should not be present in drinking water and their presence should be minimised while not compromising disinfection.
Five Donegal supplies are to be improved by 2017, six by 2018 and one supply has no timeframe for completion by Irish Water.
Counties Kerry, Cork, and Donegal account for almost half of the “at risk” supplies in Ireland, the report said.
No Donegal supplies were found to have traces of E. coli.
The EPA said progress on schemes on the Remedial Action List is one of the priority actions required to protect our drinking water supplies.
Overall, the EPA said that the quality of drinking water in Ireland is good. 99.9% of samples comply with the microbiological standards and 99.5% of samples comply with the chemical standards.
Darragh Page, Senior Drinking Water Inspector, Office of Environmental Enforcement, said,
“While the incidence of E. coli in public water supplies continues to decrease, the current challenge is to reduce the levels of other pollutants in public water supplies across the country, particularly THM, and pesticides.
“The number of supplies reporting THM failures remains high, and a consistent national approach must be adopted to ensure that pesticides are prevented from entering our drinking water sources. We have also identified 25 supplies that require adequate treatment to prevent Cryptosporidium entering the water supply.”
View the EPA’s Remedial Action List for Q2 of 2017 here: http://www.epa.ie/pubs/reports/water/drinking…..
Click here to read the EPA Drinking Water Report 2016
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