National water commissioner sought

THE SHANNON Protection Alliance, which includes boating enthusiasts, anglers and farmers, has called for the appointment of a national water commissioner to deal with controversial plans to pipe supplies to a reservoir for the Dublin region.

The group is angry at its exclusion from a briefing on the latest plans to pipe water from the Shannon to Dublin city.

Dublin City Council consultants RPS, which in 2006 produced a positive assessment of the possibility of using water from the Shannon to serve the greater Dublin region, is currently preparing a more detailed feasibility study due to be published this summer.

But in advance of the publication, RPS staff met members of the Shannon River Basin District Advisory Council in Carrick-on-Shannon in recent weeks to advise them of the progress of the plans.

At that meeting the members of the advisory council were told the latest options included taking water from Lough Ree and Lough Derg simultaneously and pumping it to a reservoir area on a cut-away bog near Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath.

The development of the reservoir was put forward as a possible option to mitigate against taking large amounts of water from the lakes during the summer or dry spells when levels could be low.

Other options still being assessed include taking water from Lough Ree only, Lough Derg only, or from below Ardnacrusha in Co Limerick.

But according to river basin advisory council member Paddy Mackey, it was acknowledged that the extraction of water would do little or nothing to prevent the problems of flooding along the Shannon during winter.

Mr Mackey said he was concerned that in summer the abstraction of water could have a critical impact on water levels on Lough Ree. "I would have great fears about the inner lakes" he said.

A further concern, according to Mr Mackey, was the size of the pipe which would extract the water, as he believed that the amount of water taken from the Shannon would very quickly rise to the capacity of the pipe.

Chairman of the Shannon Protection Alliance, Martin McEnroe, said the organisation's confidence in RPS had been damaged by the decision not to invite the alliance to the briefing.

"We would like to see the plans. You would imagine if they genuinely wanted to address the issues we would be shown the plans".

Mr McEnroe also said he believed that once the principle of abstracting water from the Shannon had been agreed, the amount drawn would rise year on year. "Once that pipe goes in we are in trouble" he said.

A spokeswoman for Dublin City Council yesterday maintained RPS personnel had briefed the the River Basin Advisory Council because they had been invited to do so.

She added that the river basin group was "representative of every stakeholder group, including non-governmental organisations in the area, so it is appropriate that they would be briefed in advance of briefing any individual groups".