Repair works, monitoring or upgrading is required on more than a dozen public water supply schemes serving more than 70,000 people throughout counties Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal.
Most of these are in County Donegal.
Nationally, more than 100 drinking water supplies are in need of remedial works to avoid the threat of water restrictions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s recently released Drinking Water Report for 2015.
Kiltyclogher public water supply in County Leitrim, which serves 333 people, is among 17 public water supplies currently on a Boil Notice.
So far this year, 86,000 people in the country have had to boil their water to make it safe.
This is more than twice as many as last year.
And the EPA says that without investment, this type of water restriction will continue to occur.
A Boil Water Notice issued to 28 householders on the Lough Talt Regional Water Supply Scheme in County Sligo was recently lifted.
It had been in place since May 2015.
In relation to another major Sligo scheme, the Lough Gill Regional Water Supply, which serves more than thirteen and a half thousand people around Sligo, it’s recommended that the Cairns Hill Water Treatment Plant be abandoned and replaced by another, the Foxes Den Plant, which is expected ot be completed early next year.
And the South Sligo Regional Water Supply Scheme, which serves more than 1,400 people, depends on upgrade of a water treatment plant in north Roscommon.
In County Donegal, the EPA has issued a direction requiring works be completed on the Cashelard supply by February 2017.
The EPA has called for the source of that scheme be abandoned and the supply replaced with water from the Ballyshannon Water Scheme.
Cryptosporidium monitoring is continuing on the Glenties-Ardara scheme.
Here, the EPA has also recommended abandoning the source and replacing it with a supply from the Leitermacaward scheme.
Upgrade of the water treatment plant is called for at Owenteskna/Kilcar.
In Pettigo, it’s recommended that the supply be replaced with an alternative source from Northern Ireland.
The EPA says Irish Water needs to speed up the investment in remedial works so that the threat of long-term water restrictions is eliminated.
And it says that where there are delays, it will continue to take enforcement action.
