Uisce Éireann Ask For Your Help
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What are the urgent water main upgrades Uisce Éireann is carrying out this weekend?
Hundreds of workers, only 27 hours to do the job. It's been billed as the most ambitious repair and refurb project ever by Ishgaran for this weekend. They're appealing to those in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow to conserve water while the project is underway and time is of the essence. Now joining us is Stephen Burke, Senior Regional Operations Manager for Ishgaran. Stephen, good morning. Good morning, Pat. The job is on at the moment.
Yeah, we're right in the middle of it at the moment, but I'm delighted to say that everything is currently going according to plan. We commenced the works yesterday afternoon by reducing production at our biggest treatment plant in the country, Ballymore Eustace. Explain how much water that delivers and to whom. So at the moment, Ballymore Eustace is producing about 350 million litres per day and that supplies roughly half the water to the greater Dublin area, Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow. To put that in perspective, that would be slightly less than Croke Park if it was filled with water. My goodness. Every day. That's how much that plant is.
So how will that area be serviced today, given that the water, I presume, is switched off?
So we still have treatment, it's very much operational at our other treatment plants at Leekslip, Ballyboden, Vartree, and we're still able to get some water out of Ballymore Eustice. But ultimately, the most critical pipeline in the country is the one we're working on right now. It carries about 220 million litres a day. So while that pipe is off, we shut it off at about nine o'clock last night. So for every 24 hours that that pipe is off, our treated water storage across the region will drop by about 220 million litres. Now, is water still being produced and stored? Absolutely, yeah. We are still producing water, but at the moment the amount of water we're producing is significantly less than the daily demand for the greater Dublin area because we have had to reduce production for these works.
What gave rise to the works? I mean, what has gone wrong?
So the pipe itself is about 50 years old. It's made of concrete. It's approaching its end of life.
How much water does the Ballymore Eustace treatment plant supply to Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow?
We've identified a number of leaks on the pipe. And obviously, we're really investing heavily in leakage reduction. So we need to get those leaks fixed. But equally, we identified a number of sections where the pipe is actually at risk of burst.
Now, what causes the concrete to deteriorate? Well, ultimately, age would be one of the main factors. We're worrying about going over a 60-year-old concrete bridge, you know.
Yeah. Look, we would have stringent measures in place to assess the performance of our pipes in terms of leakage and condition, water quality, things like that.
Do you have any idea how much water you were losing through those key leaks?
Well, we've carried out similar repairs in previous years, albeit never this ambitious. Last year, our savings were in the region of over 1 million litres per day. This year, we expect to save somewhere between 2 and 3 million litres per day. So you don't know definitively until you've finished the works and everything is calmed down.
What does the work involve? What do they have to do?
So it's a very complex, very specialised engineering challenge. We have 15 leak repairs. Those repairs are being done internally. So right now, this minute, we have six separate crews at six separate locations inside the pipe right now repairing the leaks internally. Typically, the leaks are all at joints in the pipe internally. So that is a very specialist measure. Separately, the two sections where we've identified that the pipe is at risk of burst, we've actually removed sections of pipe to about the size of a railway carriage. And those sections of existing pipe are out now and we were just starting to install them.
How big is that pipe then? I mean, external diameter, internal diameter?
External diameter is over two metres in diameter. Internally, it's about 1.6 metres. So it's a very big pipe.
So if those key areas, those carriage length sections, if part of those failed, I mean, it would be catastrophic for the government supply.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What are the urgent water main upgrades Uisce Éireann is carrying out this weekend?
0:00–1:49
2
How much water does the Ballymore Eustace treatment plant supply to Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow?
1:49–3:43
3
How will the region be supplied while the critical pipeline carrying 220 million litres/day is shut off?
3:43–6:42
4
What caused the 50-year-old concrete pipe to need emergency repairs and how much leakage was detected?
6:42–11:07