Health alert overwater monitoring

A lack of adequate monitoring of group water supplies by local authorities is risking people's health, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In a report on drinking water quality in the State in 2005, to be published today, the EPA says overall compliance with an e.coli standard in private group water schemes fell to just 77.5 per cent - meaning water in more than 22 per cent of the schemes was unfit for human consumption.

E.coli contamination arises from human or animal waste but the EPA also found that local authority sampling programmes, where animal sewage was spread on land as an agricultural practice, were either non-existent or inadequate.

The EPA described the performance of the private schemes as "worrying".

The agency found that despite the poor performance of the private schemes in 2005 - the latest year for which figures are available - no local authority audited by the agency had taken enforcement action to have the water supplies cleaned. It also criticised a "serious shortfall" in monitoring water supplies generally.

While the figures reveal that overall the rate of compliance with 48 standards for drinking water in 2005 was as high as 96.7 per cent - up from 96.4 per cent in 2004 - the EPA says "the improvement was not due to improving drinking water quality but rather due to a reduction in the amount of monitoring of poorer quality group water schemes in 2005."

The EPA found that 65 per cent of private group water schemes in Cavan; 60 per cent in Kerry; 82 per cent in Leitrim; 67 per cent in Donegal; and 54 per cent in Sligo were contaminated with e.coli at least once during 2005.

Some 7 per cent of the population is served by private group water schemes while a further 10 per cent of the population is served by private wells which are not covered by regulations.

The reports are to be published on the EPA website today. It is at www.epa.ie