Water Update - 29th January 2010
Friday, 29 January 2010 00:00

Update on Water Supply Situation – 29th January 2010


There has been a significant improvement in relation to the water supply situation throughout the Dublin Region over the last week.  This is due to a combination of factors including a reduction in demand from consumers, finding and fixing leaks and the imposition of supply restrictions by the Local Authorities.  Storage levels have recovered from the critically low levels of early January at all treated water reservoirs.  At Stillorgan Reservoir, which is of vital strategic importance, levels have risen from a low of 402 million litres on January 15th to 640 million litres on January 29th 2010.

This improvement in storage has allowed us to begin to reduce the level of restriction and to return to more normal levels of service.  Most parts of the city now have reasonable levels of supply although there are some small areas where work remains to be done to resolve local problems.

Notwithstanding the improvement it will be necessary to continue to impose restrictions on supply but these will, as far as possible, be confined to night time and continue until the end of next week to allow a full recharge of the reservoirs.  Pressure reductions and possible loss of supply will be experienced in different parts of the city at different times in order to try, as far as possible to share the problem.  We would request that consumers bear with us through this period and continue to assist us by using as little water as possible to conserve supplies.  Information regarding which areas and when they will be affected will be placed on the City Council’s web site www.dublincity.ie.

Dublin City Council would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to all of those who played a part in helping to resolve the unprecedented difficulties with water supply that have been experienced over the last 3 weeks.  Without the understanding, co-operation and assistance of all of our customers, the Elected Members, the City Council’s own staff from all departments, area offices, Civil Defence and Fire Brigade, our sister Local Authorities the Department of Defence (Army) and companies like Diageo the problems would remain to be resolved. While further work is required as will ongoing conservation it is a credit to all involved that the impact of a one in fifty year cold spell on the water distribution system will have been substantially dealt with in a period of four weeks.