It’s what you have an EPA for…
RTE reported yesterday that 18% of the Republic’s urban waste water is only receiving preliminary treatment. Not a patch on our loathsome, and effectively unregulated, discharge of raw sewage into the Irish Sea. The Environmental Protection Agency itself reports:
- At 30 locations, mainly towns or cities discharging to estuaries or coastal waters, the required secondary wastewater treatment plants were not in place. At these locations wastewater was being discharged with either no treatment or basic treatment in non-compliance with the Regulations.
- The performance of small and medium sized waste water treatment plants continues to be unacceptable with only 19% and 38%, respectively, treating effluent to a satisfactory standard.
- Monitoring of discharges from treatment plants is still in need of improvement.
You can study the fuller report here.
