Report claims sewage freely flowing into Corrib and Galway Bay

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – An Taisce has accused Galway City Council of multiple breaches of State and European water regulations, alleging it is allowing raw sewage to discharge into the River Corrib and Galway Bay – even when rainfall does not exceed the levels where exemptions apply.

The Council has disputed the findings of the report, with Senior Engineer Carmel Kilcoyne describing them as “sensational”, with “a number of inaccuracies” at a local authority meeting this week.

The environmental watchdog group has also accused the local authority of failing to report frequent discharges of untreated sewage into the city’s surface water as individual incidents to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as reportedly required.

It said that each month, tens of millions of litres of sewage – the equivalent of 35 Olympic-sized swimming pools – are flowing into the Corrib from a surface water drain near Spanish Arch.

The Council has long failed to prevent wastewater from entering Ballyloughane Beach from three different stormwater pipes owned and managed by them, a problem that could easily be rectified, according to the author.

In the hard-hitting 250-page report, the body says it is convinced after analysing sampling reports, incidents of discharges and Met Éireann records of actual rainfall that the Mutton Island Wastewater Treatment Plant does not have the capacity to treat wastewater within the terms of EPA licence from its current catchment area and population.

“Either the capacity of Mutton Island must be increased, or a new plant should be built for the eastern side of Galway City, Oranmore and Athenry,” the organisation argues.

The report – authored by Ian Lumley, Head of Advocacy at the watchdog – focuses on regular discharges into the River Corrib at the Spanish Arch and Claddagh Basin, the regular contamination of Claddagh Beach and Grattan Beach and why Ballyloughane Beach has failed to secure Blue Flag status.

Engineer Carmel Kilcoyne said her unit would be drawing up a response to the report, which she stressed had been published in December without any consultation with the Council.

Cllr John Connolly called on the Council to respond “with a degree of urgency and provide clarity to the public”.

(Photo: The Mutton Island Sewage Treatment Plant which An Taisce has claimed needs to have its capacity increased).
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