Asbestos in water mains ‘not a risk’ to health

BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM

A Galway City Council official has denied there is a health risk to the public water supply from a damaged mains pipe on the Headford Road which is made from asbestos cement, despite leading national and international expert opinion to the contrary.

The Galway City Tribune has learned that the damaged pipe on land at Bothar an Choiste – which left around 3,000 homes on the east side of the city without water earlier this week – is made from asbestos cement.

Asbestos fibres are a proven carcinogen (cancer-causing), and special precautions must be taken in handling and disposing of it.

The Council’s Director of Services for Transport and Infrastructure, Ciarán Hayes, told this newspaper that the 21 inch pipe, which is more than 30 years old, “does not pose a public health risk”. When asked if asbestos had been found on the site, he replied “No”.

Then asked if there was asbestos in the pipes, Mr Hayes said: “Some of the older pipes in the city are made of asbestos cement. That is a completely different product to asbestos. It doesn’t pose the same health risk.

“There aren’t the fibres that you get from asbestos. There is no public health risk,” Mr Hayes told this newspaper yesterday.

It’s understood that a ‘standoff’ on the site earlier this week – where the landowner challenged the Council’s right to enter the land – arose because of the landowner’s concerns about the presence of asbestos and any potential risk from disturbing it.

Despite Mr Hayes’ assurances, national and international experts have said asbestos cement does pose a risk. Professor Muiris FitzGerald – Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at UCD and a lung expert – has previously said that a theoretical risk from asbestos in water [to the public] exists, including if water is transferred through the pipes, although the risk is considerably less than if the particles were airbone.

The Office of Public Works agreed, saying: “Even cement-based products may release fibres if abraded, mechanically disturbed or not.”

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.