By Gordon Deegan
The state’s environmental watchdog, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has stated that the number of water supplies affected by pesticide exceedances increased by 42% to 37 supplies last year.
According to the EPA’s annual report for 2020, the increase “indicates a deteriorating and more widespread trend of pesticides exceedances in drinking water”.
In the report, the EPA states that it “is very concerned about the lack of progress by Irish Water in the removal of lead connections in the public network in 2020”.
Lead connections to water supplies
The report states: “Only 3,025 lead connections were replaced, significantly down from 15,248 replacements in 2019. The total number of replacements now stands at 35,666 out of approximately 180,000 lead connections”.
The EPA report also points out that Irish Water’s progress in installing orthophosphate dosing to reduce the solubility of lead from pipework is very slow, with only one plant completed in 2020.
The report states: “There are 10 additional plants at which orthophosphate dosing facilities are installed but not operating, due to Irish Water budget constraints.
The report adds: “This is most unsatisfactory because Irish Water has spent money installing dosing equipment, but the public health outcome of reducing exposure to lead in drinking water has not been achieved.”
Boil water notices
The report records that the number of boil notices last year reduced from 67 to 44 with 79,030 impacted in 2020, compared to 695,364 in 2019.
At the end of the year, only 1,335 people remained on boil water notices and only 18 people remained on water restrictions.
The report states that the number of public water supplies on the EPA Remedial Action List (RAL) “showed some progress in 2020, with a net decrease of six supplies”.
The EPA added: “There are currently 46 supplies on the RAL which serve 1,004,997 people.”
EPA prosecutions and accounts
The report also confirms that 13 EPA prosecutions were concluded in the district court in 2020.
The report states that total fines and costs came to €151,602 made up of costs of €122,602 and fines of €29,000.
The figures show that 13 members of EPA staff last year earned over €100,000. The pay of EPA director general, Laura Burke totalled €172,000.
The EPA’s consultancy costs last year increased from €1.34 million to €1.47 million.
The accounts show that a large part of the consultancy spend went on legal advice, including financial provision of licenced activities at €1.04 million.
The amount paid in legal costs concerning third parties decreased dramatically from €653,874 to €282,917.
The EPA’s total spend last year came to €73.95 million.
The largest portion of that concerned staff costs totalling €27 million with the numbers employed remaining static at 420.
The EPA was funded by Oireachtas grants of €49.8 million while it also generated €9.88 million from enforcement activities.