As part of the follow-up interviews for the Roscommon community photography project, we had the opportunity to visit various workplaces of the caretaker of Polecat Springs GWS. He showed us some of the nuts, bolts, fittings and joints that he uses, day-to-day, in the ordinary upkeep of the scheme. He showed us the meters that are being installed to monitor usage on the network, and talked us through how this is being done. While a large part of the maintenance work is performed in the caretaker’s shed, at the scheme’s treatment facility, and out-and-about on the network, this is not the only place from which the GWS is overseen. Polecat Springs have installed bulk meters connected to a SCADA system, which allows water usage and network integrity to be monitored remotely. The caretaker has an old laptop dedicated exclusively to this task. This lives in his home, allowing him to keep track of things with ease and comfort. Reading the levels at different locations and times of the day demands a significant knowledge of the scheme and the software, but helps the caretaker to take a prompt and directed response to most problems that arise.
]]>Peake Mantua was established in the 1970s. Like all private schemes installed at that time, it serviced a small number of houses and farms with untreated water. Water was sourced from a nearby spring, where locals would sometimes gather to drink, swim and play. With time, the quality of water at the source declined and chlorine treatment was added. In the 2000s, with assistance from the Roscommon County Council and funding from the Rural Water Programme, Peake Mantua purchased and had installed a sand filter and a UV treatment chamber. Remedial works were undertaken at the source, enclosing the spring with a concrete cover to prevent plant and animal growth from clogging up the pumps and pipes.
As other Group Water Schemes in the area entered into service contracts with third-party providers—under the Design, Build and Operate bundling programme of the late noughties—Peake Mantua elected to remain independent. The pride members have for the scheme underscored a desire to maintain control of its management and maintenance. The challenge they face in achieving this is not technical but social.
Despite its size, Peake Mantua have equipment similar to what can be found at a state-of-the-art facility. This was perhaps one of the most surprising and inspiring things about the scheme. The equipment in the images in the gallery above is not too dissimilar from what can be found at other Group Water Schemes, only much smaller and more tightly arranged. State funding and support have allowed the scheme to purchase facilities that are, for the most part, sufficient to their needs.
Peake Mantua is, however, unable to pay its caretaker. Time given to maintaining the treatment facility and distribution network is voluntary. The caretaker is a relatively young man and has another, full-time job, working in a technical capacity for the Irish military. It is only on the weekend that he is able to work for the GWS. Despite this, he has slowly developed the knowledge and expertise needed to keep the facility running. This includes things, such as changing the spent bulb of the UV treatment chamber, that other schemes employ private contractors to undertake.
So long as the scheme have someone willing to perform this work, then their relative independence remains feasible. The worry expressed to us, however, is that too few of the scheme’s members are interested doing this and that in time, this may become an issue.
]]>After exploring Mayo in the morning in late April, we drove to Roscommon to visit the Corracreigh GWS, one of the group water schemes participating in the groundwater protection pilot in Roscommon, lead by the GSI and the NFGWS. With its manager, we visited different parts of the GWS — the treatment plant, the pump house, the reservoir — which are all distributed across the landscape. The Corracreigh GWS is another example of a DBO scheme. Originally four different schemes: Rathcroghan, Clooney Quinn, Drinan, and Anamore. In the early 2000s, these four schemes were all on boil water notices and so under the direction of the Department they decided to amalgamate. The source chosen was Cloooney Quinn because it was fed by 7 springs and “in good weather you could drink it without treating it”. The sources for the other three schemes were lakes and were all polluted. In order to amalgamate they had to establish a cooperative with a board of 12 members, 3 from each scheme. There were no issues with the amalgamation, according to the manager, as all four schemes wanted quality water for their communities.
Corracreigh GWS now supplies water to about 300 connections and underwent its DBO in 2006. Like other DBOs in Roscommon, the scheme includes UV treatment to address the issue of cryptosporidium in the area and the impossibility of removing cryptosporidium from the groundwater supply due to the karst geology in the area. Metering was also part of the amalgamation/upgrade, which has made a big difference to water usage on the scheme. The amount of water used by one of the schemes (Rathcroghan) before metering is now the same as the amount used by all four schemes. This progress can’t be separated from the parallel work undertaken to replace and repair the network, nor the particular ways that water leakages are detected and addressed. The manager told us that he gets a read out every day on water use. If he sees a spike in use he can locate it based on the bulk water meter (about 30 connections per meter). He then texts people who he knows living or working in that area to keep an eye out for obvious signs of water leaks or outdoor taps and hoses that have been accidentally left on. If the spike isn’t fixed within 24 hours he sends the caretaker down to take a look, but usually it is fixed – here is a great example of how people become part of infrastructure and its maintenance.
We went with the manager to see the source of their water – a swallow hole that is well disguised from the road (that we had previously visited in October). Geologists from the GSI put red dye into the swallow hole and it appeared within 2 hours, 5 miles away. Everyone had been surprised at how fast it had moved and where it had appeared. They had known something about the karst geology and the risks it posed for the quality of water but the work of the GSI has really helped sharpen that understanding. Coincidentally, the farmer who owns the field where the swallow hole is located is on the Board of the Corracreigh GWS. While this helps, no one is sure what can really be done to protect the groundwater from contamination.
Over the course of our research, we have made several visits to the Pollacat Springs GWS in Roscommon as we have been elaborating on the history and schematics of the scheme to inform the work we’ve developed here.
On this visit, we toured the pump house and reservoir for the scheme. The reservoir was built as the ‘interconnector for the 3 schemes’ as a way of securing 100% funding (rather than 80%) for DBO upgrades. Roscommon is not known for its hills but the reservoir is placed at one of the highest points in order to use gravity to distribute the water through the network. From that height the horizon stretched far into the distance, encompassing four or five counties. Anthony, the caretaker of Pollacat, could name and talk about all the houses and farms we could see. He pointed to a house and field where a tractor was spreading slurry. He was one of the last dairy farmers in the area. He had about 80 cows but was 60 and planning to retire at 62. The smell of the slurry was particularly noxious.
GWS have existed alongside and with agriculture, shaping and sometimes dominating the mechanics of drinking water provision. While we’ve noted these agricultural connections repeatedly, they are not the only infrastructure making its mark on the landscape. On this visit, our apprehension of the landscape was marked by energy infrastructures. As we drove around Roscommon we passed a number of handmade posters warning about ‘toxic battery farms’. We asked Anthony about these and he told us there was a proposal to build a ‘battery farm’ in Roscommon. He had attended a recent public consultation and wanted more information on the risks involved. He told us about a case in Duisberg, Germany, where one of these battery farms had exploded and released toxic chemicals. These battery farms are only the latest site of contestation in the expanding energy infrastructure networks located across rural Ireland that are required to harness, store and circulate ‘green’ energy.
Later in the afternoon, we happened upon a memorial to the 1916 Rising and the Republican Declaration. The main monument was erected in 1967, presumably for the fiftieth anniversary of the Rising, with other smaller monuments to specific soliders erected during the 1970s and 1980s by the local IRA.
We also returned to Polecat GWS to learn more details about the history of its upgrades and developments. The layout of its water treatment facility embodies funding cycles for upgrades, concerns over source water protection, and the impact of the crash on the area. The caretaker spoke about how variable the qualities of the water in the spring are and how this is influenced by weather and agricultural practices.
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