Uisce Éireann has advised businesses in Galway city to horde massive supplies of water on site in case “difficult” network leaks result in multi-day outages.
The advice to stockpile 24-hour supplies of water appears in emails seen by the Advertiser from the national water utility, addressed to Galway City Council chief executive, Leonard Cleary.
The correspondence stems from the consequences of two major water shortages in Galway city last year - in August and November - which caused a number of city centre pubs, restaurants, guesthouses and other businesses to close during the first weekend of the busy Christmas shopping period, and during peak summer tourist season.
“Uisce Éireann would advise non-domestic customers to have 12/24-hour storage tanks at their premises to mitigate the impact in the event of a disruption to the supply, and that all appliances should be plumbed indirectly, ie from on-site storage rather than directly from the mains in the event of an unplanned outage,” is the utility’s response to the city manager, emailed last week.
Mr Cleary and Councillor Niall McNelis (Lab ) both separately expressed their “unhappiness” at Uisce Éireann’s belated response to the November outages at a meeting of Galway City Council this week.
ed Irish Water’s communications with the local authority, and local businesses.
“Their response is a load of b******s. Where am I supposed to store 24 hours of water if I’m a hairdresser? How much water does a hotel need if it’s hosting conferences? Where is that going to go?” he asked.
“These businesses pay for their water. We have an archaic water system in the city centre, and if we knew when there will be emergency shutdowns because of leaks, that would be something, but [Irish Water’s] comms centre in Cork hasn’t a clue, and only puts stuff on social media days after something happens, and it’s usually information we’ve already told them,” McNelis said. "We're missing the local knowledge."
The city manager confirmed there had been multiple communications with the water utility about outages affecting rate payers in Galway city. "The request in the Council's letter was for improved communications from Uisce Éireann. The disappointment expressed related to the fact that the concerns of businesses were not fully addressed in the response received," said Cleary.
In August last year, Galway City Council officials tasked Galway Fire Service to deliver emergency potable water supplies to two city centre hotels after their duty managers pleaded for help. Informed sources report a tanker truck hired by Uisce Éireann arrived to one hotel a full week after the outage.
A water main along Lough Atalia Road had burst in two places, creating floods and a major water shortage, forcing several Galway city centre businesses to close. Four emergency repair crews with heavy machinery struggled to cap the leaks, which caused serious traffic disruption for a number of days.
A number of pubs, restaurants and hairdressers in the city centre closed due to uncertainty regarding water supply, while some hotels activated back-up water storage tanks. Around 500 city centre addresses were affected overall.
Last November, a burst watermain near the Docks caused outages across the city centre, again prompting businesses faced with uncertainty of supply to close.
Uisce Éireann said that leak was difficult to locate, as no surface water appeared above ground. “Associated works were required in private property (Galway Harbour Company ) which required permission and careful planning around water shut-offs to hydrants and other water infrastructure, critical to ships docking behind the Harbour Hotel,” it said, adding that “crowds and busy social activity in the city” meant no leak detection works were possible on the first (Friday ) night it became aware of the issue.
More recently, in January, 2,000 homes in the Old Dublin Road area of Galway city experienced water supply disruption after a water main burst near Merlin Park Hospital, necessitating overnight repairs.
