Quality of public drinking water improves significantly

Significant improvements have been made in the quality of public drinking water, with the number of people served with “boil water” notices down to 6,000, from a peak of 23,000 in early 2015.

However, a warning has been issued about the quality of drinking water in individual private wells, up to 30 per cent of which are estimated to be contaminated by E.coli from animal or human waste.

The figures are contained in the latest Environmental Protection Agency report on drinking water, which calls for ongoing improvements in public water supplies and sounds a warning about the dangers of ill-health from some private supplies.

In the public supplies category, the agency notes the improvements made in reducing the number of people affected by “boil water” notices.

But the report says 16 water supplies are currently under a boil water warning, and the agency calls for more work to eliminate these.

Vulnerable

The report also says more than 112 supplies, serving 770,000 people, are deemed to be vulnerable and “at risk” of pollution.

Of these 112, the report says 30 lack adequate treatment to prevent Cryptosporidium entering the supply.

The report notes the elimination of boil notices in all but one of the Roscommon water supplies, which previously featured chronic problems.

However, the agency expressed particular concern over the quality of drinking water in private individual wells which are exempt from regulation.

The report notes a HSE warning on a growing number of cases of VTEC – a pathogenic form of E.coli.

Ireland has the highest incidence of VTEC in Europe, with a doubling of the number of cases since 2011.

HSE analysis of VTEC patients showed they were up to four times likely to have consumed untreated water from private wells.

The Environmental Protection Agency said disinfection kills all E.coli including VTEC, and, while public water supplies are disinfected, not all private well are.

The agency says rural families “are commonly affected and much of this is because of contaminated wells”.

The report is also critical of some private, group water schemes which are regulated by local authorities, saying water quality in such schemes “lags significantly behind the quality in the public network”.

The water standard for nitrates was exceeded in nine supplies in 2014 – eight of which were small private supplies in counties Cork, Kilkenny, Meath, Wexford and Carlow.