Wexford will shortly be celebrating the blessed relief of an end to the din, dust and disruption caused by a mammoth pipe-laying operation which involved, almost literally, digging up the entire town from end to end. The ongoing main drainage scheme - which was, at its outset, probably the biggest single civil engineering project under way in the Republic - has dominated the daily lives of townspeople and visitors alike over the last few years.
It was, and still is, a visionary and comprehensive infrastructural project setting out primarily to remedy the problem of the discharge of untreated sewage into the harbour.
The European Waste Water Directive requires the provision of secondary treatment of sewage from coastal towns before the year 2000. The EU Cohesion Fund could be tapped, and thus the £45 million Wexford scheme was undertaken. The Town Clerk, Mr Don Curtin, describes it as "an investment in the future".
The 17,000 residents affected by the noise and the traffic chaos were kept involved and informed at every stage by a detailed information programme provided by Wexford Corporation.
Some 27 km of pipeline was laid in deep trenches through the narrow streets of the town. The main interceptor sewer, over two metres in diameter, is located parallel to, but outside the line of, the existing quay front and this has involved extensive land reclamation from the sea.
This reclamation is leaving the town a valuable and flexible new land resource. The quay area is being extended by up to 30 metres along a distance of some 850 metres, providing space for new leisure facilities and amenities such as a maritime park, and expanding the working docks area available to the town's fishermen.
The town has also gained a storehouse of new information concerning its ancient past, as every stage of the excavations for the pipe-laying was monitored by archaeologists, Kathy Sheehan and Orla Scully, of Archaeological Development Services Ltd.
Although they were confined to the width of the trenches, they nevertheless were granted "a quick window" into Wexford's mediaeval and Viking period, with the full co-operation of the contractor, civil engineer, Pat Mulcair. The archaeologists encountered portions of wattle walls, and medieval paving representing the earliest recorded street surface in Wexford.
They found leather artefacts, and a medieval ship's timber which is now undergoing conservation in the National Museum. Pottery found beside the timber has been dated to the 13th and 14th centuries.
In the course of the trenching and other work, up to 600,000 cubic metres of earth and rock were excavated, and meticulous planning was necessary, by the corporation and its consulting engineers, T.J. O'Connor and Associates, to ensure that the foundations of some of the town's oldest buildings were not undermined.
While the pipe-laying stage of the project is ending, the development of the quay extension is continuing, with some dredging and blasting due to begin. And at a later stage still, the final phase, the construction of the secondary treatment plant south of the town, will begin. The necessary land has been acquired and an environmental impact statement has been prepared, and tenders for the work will be invited before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Wexford is anticipating the luxury of utilising a substantial new expanse of public recreational space and its fishermen are looking forward to returning to spacious new docks beside the town.