WATER CHARGES:FARMER MICHAEL Kelly is surrounded by water, but he firmly believes it should be metered and paid for.
The Irish Farmers’ Association’s south Galway representative has grown up with more floods than droughts on the turlough-strewn limestone landscape, but says he still appreciates every drop.
As chairman of the Ardrahan group water scheme, he supervises a management scheme that is now 30 years in existence.
“We have three decades of records, and every premises – be it church, school, house, pub, farm or Garda barracks – has a meter,” he says. “Until we put such a system into every connection, we won’t have proper conservation. It is the only way.”
Under the new arrangements, water charges will only apply to those who are connected to the public water supply system, according to the Department of the Environment.
It estimates about 612,000 people are served by group water schemes. Of these some 328,000 are served by about 1,100 schemes under the remit of the 2007 Drinking Water Regulations.
“We have about 180 household connections, and then other land connections in Ardrahan, so we are a standalone scheme,” Kelly says. Other neighbouring schemes are run in “bundles” under a co-operative arrangement, and treatment including chlorination is carried out by an independent private contractor to national standards, he continues.
“Our scheme dates back to 1980-81, and we did have problems in the early years, as did many schemes,” he says. Contamination and breaks in supply were recurring issues in many areas, but most of these difficulties have been ironed out.
The Environmental Protection Agency has noted the number of private group water schemes in which bacterial contamination caused by E.coli was detected dropped from 87 (17 per cent) in 2009 to 56 (11.6 per cent) in 2010. “In general, the microbiological quality of private group water schemes remains inferior to public water supplies,” it said in its 2010 report.
Mr Kelly says Ardrahan charges about €2.50 per thousand gallons, with an allowance for the first 10,000 gallons covering the elderly and those living alone.
“The average domestic household uses 45,000 gallons a year, and most households pay about €50 to €60 annually, while in my case I have a farm and a home and pay close on €500 annually,” he says. As with other service charges this is tax allowable, he points out.
“What’s important is that metering catches the waster, or people who have a problem they don’t know about,” he says.
“That’s the benefit, whereas there could be leaks for weeks in Galway city and nothing would have been done. We cannot sustain the level of water we use, and it is a precious resource,” he adds.
Dr Mary Rogan, a general practitioner in Annaghdown, Galway, says she pays about €80 a year. “We’ve been on it for the past 21 years, and last year the county council took it over and linked us up to the Luimnagh treatment plant near Tuam, Co Galway.”
It is, as she points out, “ a fact of life here and something rural people have been living with for some time”.
