Tipperary town to face overnight water outage as 700,000 litres lost daily to leaks
A busy town in Tipperary is due to be without water on Tuesday, February 10, as Uisce Éireann carry out leak detection works.
Homes and businesses in Tipperary town will be without water from 10pm on Tuesday evening as part of the utility’s major programme to tackle leakages in the area and make the water supply in the area more stable. Water will return at 6am on Wednesday morning, Uisce Éireann said.
The utility had come under fire from local councillors for the area with the confirmation that water pressure in the town was being turned down every night in efforts to ensure there was enough water to supply the town.
Before Christmas, Uisce Éireann said that if pressure wasn’t turned down each night, the town would run out of water within two days.
Now, the company has said that the overnight works come as part of their attempts to make the town’s water supply more reliable.
“Uisce Éireann is continuing to deliver a targeted, strategic approach to managing leakage across Tipperary town to ensure a more reliable and resilient supply of water for local homes and businesses,” a statement from the utility said.
Dave Murphy, leakage reduction portfolio manager with Uisce Éireann said that there are challenges in some areas of the town, which relate to network management and leakage.
"We have targeted leakage detection in recent months as a measure to support us addressing overall pressure,” Mr Murphy said.
"We have deployed additional crews and specialist technology to identify large scale leaks. This is bearing fruit, enabling us to identify individual large scale leaks and complete a number of repairs to date.
"This work is continuing and we ask for the cooperation of local businesses and homeowners to support work across the town,” he added.
As part of the leakage reduction programme, Uisce Éireann said they identified a massive leak on a private property in the area, which, since repaired, is saving over 100,000 litres of water a day.
"Recently a major leak was detected by our crews on private property which, when repaired by the landowner, has saved a massive 144,000 litres of water daily,” the utility said.
The amount of water saved is enough to supply the villages of Monard, Golden, Bansha and Donaskeigh combined.
Over 90 leaks on private properties across Tipperary town have been identified, with a total of 703,450 litres of water a day being lost because of these leaks.
This is the equivalent of the daily water use of 5,289 people being lost to leaks, Uisce Éireann said.
Mr Murphy said that the company are well aware of water supply issues in the town and said that local support is key.
“We are acutely aware that there are supply challenges in Tipperary town. To resolve this, we need the support of the local community,” he said,
“The leakage across the town is causing challenges and is risking our ability to consistently keep up with the towns demand. If we work together, we can crack the town’s leakage issue and ensure a more reliable supply of water for local homes and businesses now and into the future,” he added.
Overnight restrictions will come into effect from 10pm on Tuesday, February 10, until 6am on February 11.