Viewpoint: Let's not forget the vision

During the recent water crisis at Ballymore Eustace Treatment Plant, we in Kilcullen were spared cuts in supply thanks to the newly commissioned water source from the River Barrow in Athy, writes Brian Byrne. Kildare County Council was able to increase the proportion of Barrow water in the mix with Liffey water at the Old Kilcullen reservoir which has been the operational case since the middle of summer. This had the knock-on effect of allowing more of whatever was being treated at Ballymore to be sent onwards to the capital.

This was thanks to the foresight of Council planners who pushed through this project in the last decade and a half. But it wasn't without objectors at the time, and though a much more localised infrastructural plan, the process raised hackles in a similar way to the M9 motorway scheme some years later, and to what's happening now in terms of the EirGrid Grid Link proposal.

It wasn't without objectors at the timeWhen the Barrow Abstraction plan was presented to Kildare's councillors in October 2001, Kildare's expected water needs were to increase by 46 percent over the next nine years and by 73 percent by 2020. Senator John Dardis and Deputy Emmet Stagg (both also councillors at the time) were against the proposal, saying that water could be piped from the River Shannon to meet the needs of Dublin and Kildare. Carlow's local representatives were also concerned, saying that the abstraction would seriously affect tourism in the Barrow basin. Cllrs Joe McDonald and Mary White said boat operators and anglers could have their livelihoods interfered with if the plan went ahead.

The North Barrow Branch of the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland also formally objected in 2003, but subsequently withdrew the objection following sight of a navigation survey commissioned on behalf of KCC by Tobin Consulting Engineers. Tobin interacted with the Barrow Steering Group of 21 member bodies, including the IWAI, five hydropower operators, nine commercial barge operators, seven owners of fishery rights, and 765 land owners. None of the member bodies proceeded with their objections, and all individual objectors were communicated with during the various stages of the consultation.

In December 2003, Kildare County Council received permission from An Bord Pleanala to go ahead with the proposal, and the official Order for the scheme was made in 2005. In April 2011, a 20-year contract was signed with Veolia Water to design, build and manage the automated plant. The €45m scheme went into operation in mid-July of this year and will serve south Kildare with some 31 megalitres of water a day when fully operational. During the recent water difficulties, flow to Old Kilcullen was boosted to 20 megalitres a day to ease dependence on the Ballymore Eustace supply.

For sure, there are unwelcome visible effects of the new supply in Kilcullen and, presumably, the rest of the area served by the scheme. Kettles are furring, and caffeine stains on tea and coffee cups are much more difficult to clean. There are noticeable changes in the effects of soap and shampoo, and the taste of the water is not nearly as good as it has been for generations used to the softer Liffey source. However, KCC is working to fix that by installing a water-softening system at the Barrow plant, which will be in operation by this time next year. In the meantime, the Old Kilcullen reservoir is being fed by a mix of soft and hard water to minimise the impact.

We must look to our futureAll the foregoing is a discourse on a change that, whatever the objections of the time, is now in place to keep an infrastructure in pace with demand for the medium to longer term future of County Kildare. It exemplifies that we must look to our future in whatever ways are necessary to keep the water flowing, the electricity on when we click a switch, the waste dealt with when our bins are full, the fuel available to heat our homes and power our factories.

We are a modern community and we can't barricade ourselves inside a compound to keep things as they are because that's what suits us now. We can't block the water that flows through our part of the land and thereby cut it off from those downstream, or from our neighbours who might need it now or in their future. That's the kind of thing which has over thousands of years led to wars at local and larger geographical level. There's a common good which must always be considered when looking to major changes to essential services.

Informations and misinformations to be untangled, sciences and pseudo-sciences to be winnowed apartThe current situation over the Grid Link routes raises similar issues. I'm not taking sides in the debate at this stage, because there are still many arguments to be threshed out, informations and misinformations to be untangled, sciences and pseudo-sciences to be winnowed apart. What does bother me is the rapid polarisation and the politicising of the issue which might well have a long-term effect on relations between individuals and sectors within our community.

I will be making my own submission on the proposed routes of the power line, based on protection of heritages which in their own way were the centres of our ancestral communities, and where decisions were made for the good of those communities for their time and for their own foreseeable future. And I fully support the right of others to make their own submissions to EirGrid from whatever perspective concerns them. I would just like what seems to have become a clamour and hype to slow down, so that we can all hear each other.

It would be useful too if the EirGrid people were in attendance at public gatherings to consider the plans, and engage directly with questions and claims put out at those meetings. Unchallenged assertions can very rapidly become taken as facts.

There's an interesting connection reported between the Barrow water scheme and the Grid Link proposals of today. According to Tobin Consulting Engineers, Athy is credited with being the first town in these islands to have had electricity provided by hydropower, from the Barrow. If that is so, whatever authority — official or commercial — produced that initiative, had a vision. A similar vision to those people who have over the past seven decades given us all in this land electricity in our homes at the flick of a switch, clean water flowing from our taps, and taken disease-potential waste away from open sewers.

I for one like to look at the vision for the future of my neighbours and friends as well as my own comfortable present. Because in those past decades, somebody did that for all of us here now.