Water Services

Westmeath County Council has responsibility to provide and maintain water services infrastructure that facilitates the sustainable development of the County. This infrastructure consists of water supply schemes and waste water schemes.

Water Supply Schemes

The Council operates 4 water supply schemes:

Athlone Water Supply - serves Athlone Town and environs
Mullingar Regional Water Supply Scheme - serves Mullingar Town and the east of the County
Castlepollard Regional Water Supply - serves the north of the County.
Moate Water Supply - serves Moate Town

These schemes serve all of the major towns and villages in the county as well as an extensive rural watermain network. The Group Water sector has over the years greatly extended the rural watermain network by extensions to the existing public networks. Many of these schemes were subsequently taken in charge by the council while others remain under the control of the individual group.

Each water supply scheme consists of abstraction of raw water from the natural environment, treatment of water in treatment plants, and distribution of treated water to consumers through a watermain network. The European Communities (Drinking Water) Regulations 2007 require monitoring of drinking water in all water supply schemes. In Westmeath the HSE undertake this monitoring on behalf of the Council. The EPA publishes an annual report on the results of this analysis. The volume of treated water produced by Westmeath County Council is 36,000 m3 (7.9 million gallons) per day. This treated water is supplied to a population of 60,000 and also to industry, business, agriculture, etc.

Waste Water Schemes

Westmeath County Council currently operates and maintains 24 waste water schemes. These schemes serve over 8,000 premises in all the major towns and some of the villages in the County. Each scheme generally consists of a sewer network which collects waste water from premises and conveys it to a treatment plant. When the waste water is treated to the required standard the treated effluent is discharged to the environment. The standard of treatment is dictated by the Urban Waste Water Regulations 2001 and 2004. The recently enacted Urban Waste Water Discharge Authorisation Regulation 2007 require that most treatment plants must operate under a licence from the EPA.

Lead Levels in Westmeath Water Supply

There is only approximately 33m of lead public water mains remaining in Westmeath all of which is within the old part of Athlone Town Centre. There are approx. 2800 lead service connections in this area. In Mullingar there are no lead public water mains but approximately 1400 leak service connections associated with the old town centre and approximately 600 in other towns and villages in the County.

The Health Service Executive (HSE), acting as agents for Westmeath County Council, monitors the drinking water supplies in Westmeath in accordance with an annual programme developed in accordance with the Drinking Water Regulations. Random samples of the supplies are taken by the HSE.

The maximum allowable concentration for lead in drinking water is 25 micrograms per litre (ug/l). A microgram is one thousandth of a milligram.This is will be reduced to 10ug/l in 2013. Over the last eight years, routine monitoring has shown no levels of lead above the maximum allowable concentration, in fact average lead levels in the county were less then 2.5ug/l. However, in July 2009, elevated lead levels above the maximum allowable concentration were noted in an area of Mullingar. Working with the HSE, the Council issued advice to the house holders in the area regarding use of the water supply for cooking and drinking and has provided stand pipes as an alternative supply for young children and pregnant women where required.

Westmeath County Council has recently been approved for funding of €6.7 million over 3 years for a mains rehabilitation programme in Mullingar and Athlone. The objective of this programme is to reduce unaccounted for water and reduce the number of lead service mains and connections in these towns. The old cast iron water mains in the affected area in Mullingar are included in this programme and during the works lead connections from the main to the stopcock will be replaced. Given the extent of this programme and the delays expected in procuring Contractors, in August 2009 the Council sought approval from the Department of the Environment Heritage and Local Government to proceed with the replacement of mains and public lead service connections in the affected area in Mullingar using the Councils own resources, as Advance Works to the Main Scheme. A decision from the Department is awaited.

It has been and continues to be Council policy to replace any lead pipe work or service connection where encountered during routine working on the water mains distribution system.