The oversight by Waterford City and County Council of private drinking water supplies in the county has been described as “wholly inadequate” by the State’s environmental watchdog.
The Environmental Protection Agency said it was seriously concerned about the findings of an audit its officials had carried out in September on how Waterford City and County Council fulfilled its role of monitoring private drinking water supplies in its administrative area.
The EPA said the council had been unable to demonstrate that it had complied with key requirements of its statutory functions to ensure households and businesses were provided with clean and wholesome drinking water.
It found there were serious shortcomings with the local authority in its supervisory role and monitoring of private water supplies in Waterford to ensure they complied with EU drinking water regulations.
They included the failure to maintain a record of details of each regulated water supply in the county and to adequately monitor them.
The audit found no compliance monitoring programme had been put in place for 2022, while information submitted by the council to the EPA was branded “incomplete.”
In addition, the council provided no evidence that it had carried out any risk assessment of private drinking water supplies in Waterford.
The EPA warned the council that it could face further enforcement actions if it failed to implement a series of recommendations made as a result of the audit.
The council was unable to provide the EPA with the number of private drinking water supplies that came under its remit.
The HSE, which undertakes compliance analysis of private supplies on behalf of the local authority, identified three regulated supplies that the council did not have on its register.
The audit also questioned the suitability of the sampling location used to assess the compliance of the Ballydurn group water scheme as it was not clear if it was normally used for human consumption.
It found the sampling locations selected by the council did not appear to be randomly selected or evenly distributed across each water supply zone.
For example, the Ballydurn scheme was monitored twice during 2002 but both samples were taken in the same month rather than being spread across the year.
A small private supply that provides drinking water to the national school in Fenor, Co Waterford was not monitored at all last year, according to the audit.
Other important checks were not carried out at all on some supplies including some on the supply providing drinking water to the national school in Stradbally, Co Waterford.
The frequency of monitoring did not meet the required level in relation to some supplies including a private water supply in Ardnahoe, Co Waterford.
The EPA noted that the council was unsure if the Ardnahoe supply was a regulated supply, while also admitting it had been incorrectly classified as a small private supply.
The council admitted it carried out certain monitoring of microbiological and chemical levels in drinking water every three years rather than annually as required by legislation.
The EPA said action must be taken as a priority by Waterford City and County Council to address the issues raised by the audit.
It required the council to submit a register of private water supplies in the county within 30 days as well as an action plan for implementing a pre-determined compliance monitoring programme.
In a statement, Waterford Council cited understaffing as the primary reason for many of the issues.
“Waterford City and County Council welcomes the findings of the EPA report. In recent years, there have been understaffing issues at many of the countries' water inspection units, through departmental transfer, retirement, etc. and this in part has had a bearing on the recent findings.”
Waterford City and County Council is endeavoring to rectify the situation, through the recruitment of more inspectors. However, in a full employment market, this is proving challenging.”
"In the interim, Waterford City and County Council will continue to dedicate its current environmental resources to ensuring compliance across a range of National Enforcement Priorities.”
