COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF ENVIRONMENT SPC

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

HEADED ITEM NO 7

HEADED ITEM: E. Services

 Major Water Source Scheme - SEA

REPLY:

Greater Dublin New Major Water Source

Dublin City Council is carrying out long term planning studies, on behalf of 8 local authorities, into how best to provide adequate supplies of drinking water for the estimated 2.5 million people expected to be living in the Greater Dublin Area by 2031.

The Greater Dublin Area includes the administrative area of Dublin City and the three other Dublin local authorities, along with parts of County Wicklow, Co. Meath and Co. Kildare.  It is estimated that the average water requirements for the Greater Dublin Area is 550 million litres a day today and will rise to around 800 million litres per day by 2031.  Peak requirements at 2031 are estimated at 880 million litres per day.

The Greater Dublin Area currently gets its water from the Rivers Liffey, Vartry and Dodder.  The environmentally sustainable production of water from existing Greater Dublin Area sources will not be sufficient to meet the increased demand of the larger projected population.  Water supplies from a new source that will augment supplies from all the existing water sources will be required by 2015/6.

Otherwise, water shortages and curtailment of economic growth will be unavoidable.

RPS Consulting Engineers and Veolia Water were appointed to examine a range of different options for a new major water supply source for the Great Dublin Area.  They identified two main possibilities that require a lot more study and extensive consultation with all stake holders; 1) a major desalination plant on the east coast and 2) abstraction of water from the River Shannon, transporting it by pipeline to the Greater Dublin Area, supplying populations along the route.

Current European and Irish legislation required Dublin City Council to undertake a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the technically feasible options. The SEA process involved the production of an Environmental Report to assess the options at a strategic level.  Consultation with Local Authorities, 10 statutory bodies, 5 non-statutory bodies and the Shannon River Basin District Advisory Council representing an additional 40/50 organisations took place between June and October 2006 and the results were fed into the SEA process.

In November 2006, following consideration of the Environmental Report and of the extensive stakeholder feedback from the public consultation process, Dublin City Council adopted the findings of the SEA in respect of the need for a new source and required further studies to be carried out on the technically feasible options.

Phase 2 of the SEA process will continue in 2008 with extensive public consultation which should result in an SEA Statement at the end of 2008.

Further information in relation to the project is available on Dublin City Council website:

http:/www.dublincity.ie/shaping_the_city/water/New Major Water Source