City’s water network to undergo major upgrade

Date Published: {J}

By Dara Bradley

Private contractors are about to embark on a major upgrade of Galway City’s water network, installing nearly 100 new meters on the existing piping which will help to identify leaks and reduce the amount of water that is wasted.

The scheme, known as Galway City Water Conservation Phase Two Project, will commence this September and will last at least 12 months, causing citywide traffic disruption at various times during the year.

Every single property in the city boundaries will experience water outages at least once during the year-long works – the Council says the disruption, traffic and water supply cuts, will be kept to a minimum and will be well flagged in advance.

Shareridge limited have won the contract to carry out the works on behalf of Galway City Council. It will be done in three stages, with stage one, costing an estimated €800,000, commencing next month.

Currently Galway City’s water network is divided into four zones but as part of stage one of the project, it will be divided into 80 different smaller zones called District Meter Areas.

Each zone will be home to roughly 800 or 1,000 properties. Work on cordoning off these zones will start in September through the installation of about 100 water metres at various junctions along the existing pipe network at the boundaries of the new District Meter Areas (DMAs).

The smaller zones will allow the Council to pinpoint leaks more easily and speedily, thus saving water. Currently about 50% of Galway City’s water is ‘unaccounted for’, or wasted through leaks on public or private pipes.

At the moment the four zones are so big that it takes too long to find the exact location of the leaks on the network – one zone currently covers every part of the city west of Bishop O’Donnell Road but once stage one of this project is completed that area will be divided into about 15 zones, making it easier to identify exactly where the water is leaking from.

Galway City Council Senior Engineer of Water Services Capital Projects, Ray Brennan said monitoring of the water going in and out of the new District Meter Areas will make it easier for the Council to pinpoint leaks.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.