Shannon-to-Dublin water route to end at Peamount

By Brendan Grehan

IRISH WATER’S final proposed route for its €1.2 billion Shannon-to-Dublin water pipe will end at Peamount near Lucan.

A local councillor has welcomed the news as good for Dublin and because it will bring jobs to the Lucan area.

Cllr William Lavelle told The Echo: “This is a good project for Dublin. We need to get behind it. It will create a lot of jobs in the Lucan area.”

The 170km route was published on Tuesday and will run from Parteen Basis through Tipperary and Offaly to Peamount, if approved.

Irish Water argues that population growth and industry demands require the investment, which it describes as the first major new water source upgrade for Dublin and the eastern midlands in the last 60 years.

They say that the pipeline will supply 330 million litres of water a day to Dublin and the midlands.

Irish Water says that water sources and infrastructure within the Region do not have the capacity, resilience or connectivity to meet future demand.

During the third phase of public consultation in November 2015 Irish Water examined a number of options before proposing the current Preferred Scheme, including desalination of seawater from the Irish Sea in Fingal.

Desalination was rejected as it is one-and-a-half times more expensive, would require very high energy use and would have potentially significant negative environmental impacts. 

Irish Water’s final preferred route refines an “emerging route” on a 2km-wide corridor to a 50m corridor for construction, and a 20m permanent wayleave (right of way).

They aim to submit the application by late next year with construction, if approved, expected between 2021 and 2024.
They say that both the ESB and landowners will be compensated.

Full details of the process by which the Preferred Scheme was identified are set out in the Final Options Appraisal Report which was published on Tuesday.

The Environ-mental Impact Statement (EIS) will present the final scheme and pipeline corridor and will accompany Irish Water’s planning application to An Bord Pleanála in late 2017. At that stage An Bord Pleanála will commence its statutory public consultation.

Irish Water is now holding public consult-ations over the next fourteen weeks to seek feedback on the development of the Preferred Scheme. Members of the public will be able to attend any of the scheduled Open Days, Details of all scheduled Open Days are available on www.watersupplyproject.ie and will be advertised in the media.

Cllr Lavelle welcomed publication of the pipeline’s preferred route.

He said: “While there are a lot of objections to this project. I wish to express my support for it. This project will secure the current and future water supply needs for Dublin.

“This is a good project for Dublin. At present we do not have wider water reserves. If there was a problem with algae bloom in our reservoirs, we would have no backup.”

He added: “Besides residential use, there are industries in West Dublin especially bio-pharma that require a lot of water so this must be seen as good news.”