Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!

Westmeath County Council has become concerned over the quality of water in the major reservoir serving Mullingar and much of East and North Westmeath, Lough Owel.Council monitoring of the lake has found that phosphorus levels have been rising in the lake, and now there is concern that this may be due to a problem with the natural springs feeding into the lake.As a result, according to Greg Duggan Senior Engineer with Westmeath County Council, the Council is to hold a special meeting towards the end of this month, to discuss the problem with Geological Surveys of Ireland, and other bodies with an involvement in the lake and the local environment, including the Shannon Regional Fisheries board, the EPA and Teagasc.It is likely, Mr. Duggan said, that a geological survey will have to be carried out to map the groundwater catchment area around the lake.The monitoring data from Lough Owel over the last 20 years has shown an upward trend in phosphorous levels.Continued from Page 1'We"ve been taking monitoring data from Lough Owel for the last 20 years or so and we have noticed a slight rise in phosphorous levels, nothing major, but yet we noticed it,' said Mr. Duggan.'There is no obvious reason for this that we can see. For instance, farming has dropped over the years, so this cannot be a major factor, and there is no major housing estate on the shores of the lake that could be contributing to this.'During the last crypto outbreak we checked out all the farms and all the surrounding septic tanks to make sure everything was in order. We now want to look at the ground water catchment area, because up to now we were focusing only on the surface water catchment.'He said that the Council has mentioned its concerns to the bodies listed above, and it"s out of those talks that the suggestion of a geological survey has arisen.The matter will, however, be thrashed out more fully when the bodies meet together later this month.'The ground water catchment may be much bigger than we had originally thought, so we could then look at farms further away. The GSI will be taking any well data available, and drilling exploratory wells, boring into the bed rock to see what they can discover,' he said.Recently, RTÉ programme Future Shock: The Last Drop explored the looming water crisis, which was based on two years of research into water quality in Ireland by RTÉ radio investigative unit reporter Philip Boucher-Hayes.In the programme he visited areas in Ireland that have experienced water problems in recent times, such as Galway and Ennis - and he warned that Westmeath was not likely to be immune from the problems, despite the apparently large number of water resources in the area, with the possibility ahead of problems for Athlone in particular.According to the documentary Ireland is wasting what water it has, and polluting what is left.In the wake of the tv programme, Chambers Ireland has this month called for the introduction of water charges for all consumers, not just businesses, in order to reduce the amount of water wastage and conserve Ireland"s water supply.Seán Murphy Director of Policy of Chambers Ireland, which has surveyed water charges for businesses for the past four years said: 'The report underlines the urgency with which we must approach the issue of water as a valuable resource. Recent occurrences have shown how important having a clean and potable water supply is for all members of the community. Accordingly, all users must pay.'Mr. Murphy went on to say 'Although some claim that domestic users pay indirectly for their water supply through income tax paid to central government, local authorities are inadequately remunerated for the true cost of domestic water services. A dual taxation approach, involving income tax and consumption-based taxes, must be seriously considered by the Government given that more than 35% of the labour force does not pay any income tax at all'.