Galway company brings safe water to beleaguered Ukraine

Coftec has so far sent out two mobile water treatment plants (WTP) to the country invaded by Russia. Transported in a 40-foot shipping container, each unit is capable of treating up to 40,000 litres of water per hour, which will supply 6,200 people with the equivalent of 1.6 million one litre bottles of clean water per day.

The WTP contains pressure filters, raw water and backwash pumps, UV disinfection reactor and all the necessary pipework and equipment to enable the self-contained water solution to be operational very quickly once it arrives, explains Darragh Hobbs, Innovation Manager with Coftec.

“It’s a complete end-to-end water treatment system. We can dial in and access it remotely so we have full oversight of what goes in and what is coming out in terms of turbidity, which helps enormously for end users.

“The process is continuously monitored and process performance is maintained through its operational cycle. This feature also aids set-up on arrival and makes provision for remote support for any commissioning and operating queries should they arise.”

Coftech is a subsidiary of Coffey, the civil engineering contractor based outside Athenry, which carries out major construction projects for Irish Water. In partnership with Irish Water, they sent the two WTPs to a town called Horodok, 50km West of Lviv.

An estimated 1.4 million people have no access to safe running water across Eastern Ukraine alone, according to a recent report from the charity UNICEF.  There are also fears that improper burials in parks, gardens, and public areas, could lead to contaminated drinking water.

They are due to ship another 40ft containerised water treatment plant to Ukraine next week in a deal with UNICEF.

Each plant costs in the region of €250,000. Darragh estimates there would be about 20 people involved at various stages of each unit, from design, construction and delivery, all of them working out of the Galway plant.

The mobile units are used by Irish Water when there is an issue with the main plant or it is undergoing an upgrade. But this is the first time it has been used in a conflict zone.

“This is our first job in a humanitarian space and it’s definitely life-saving – it’s arguably one of the most important projects we’ve ever done in the company. We know from the Cholera outbreak in Mariupol how desperate things are with the water there.

“It seems they are deliberately targeting water plants to put pressure on the Ukranians to surrender so it’s good to know that each of these systems can provide clean water for over 6,000 people.”

Set up in 1974 by brothers Paddy and Tom Coffey, Coffey delivers projects throughout Ireland and the UK in the water, transport, energy, civil engineering and building sectors.

Having identified the water industry as a key growth area, Coffey established a water division in 2000 to provide a one-stop-shop for design, build and operate services for water and wastewater treatment plants.

There are currently 250 employees in Coffey and 13 employed by Coftech.