Private residences main source of leaks - Council

Westmeath's water shortages over the Christmas period were predominantly caused by leaks in private residences according to a council official.The recent cold spell and subsequent rapid thaw, not only left most local homes without water for at least part of the Christmas period, it also created major logistical headaches for Westmeath County Council, which is responsible for maintaining the water supply.Many members of the Council's outdoor staff saw their Christmas holidays cut short as the local authority attempted to get to grips with the situation. Twenty five repair teams were deployed countywide to repair leaks and deal with the thousands of calls received on the council's helpline from members of the public.According to the latest council figures, the 25 crews, which accounted for over 50% of the council's entire outdoor staff, repaired over 1500 hundred leaks between last Monday, December 27 to last Friday, December 31.Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner yesterday, Declan Leonard, Senior Engineer for Water, said that things are gradually returning to normal and that he expects normal services to resume throughtout most of the county within the next “three or four days.”“Castlepollard system, which is North Westmeath, is operating well but there are substantial leaks still which have to be repaired. The same with Mullingar: it's operating during the day.“In Athlone the main problems have been repaired. There will be continued night-time restrictions for the next three to four nights but they will be of durations. We expect to have water on every morning from seven for people going to work and it won't be turned off until 6 or seven in the evening. We are getting more and more of the leaks.”While the public system held up relatively well given the extreme weather conditions experienced in the last month, Mr Leonard said that the majority of the leaks occurred at meter boxes at people's homes.“The supply held up well into the reservoirs. The feeding system into the reservoirs held up. It was the distribution network where most of the leaks happened, mainly at meter boxes at people's individual properties. It was at the stop cock or meter boxes at people's houses where most of the leaks occurred.”While he admitted that building practices would have to be looked at if very cold weather became a regular feature of Irish winters, Mr Leonard noted that it's hard to be prepared for weather conditions that have broken all known records.“Remember we have had extremely cold weather and a prolonged spell of it. We had temperatures of -15 and when you have that on a continual basis the front goes deeper and deeper, apart from last year these are temperatures we don't normally experience.”With people returning to work this week and school holidays ending next Monday, demand for water is bound to increase, but Mr Leonard says that repairs are at such an advanced stage that “things should be okay”He also noted that the sub zero temperatures predicted for later this week also shouldn't present too much of a problem.“We don't expect the cold spell to be anyway as severe or prolonged as in the last few weeks. They are talking about temperatures going down to -5 or -6 and this shouldn‘t cause us any undue problems. It's only when we hit the minus tens or minus fifteens for a sustained period where the real problems arise.”