Major city water leak-busting work to result in supply cuts

BY FRANK FARRAGHER

THE division of the city into close on 100 water grid areas, swings into action over the coming days, but householders should ‘escape’ with a one-off daily stoppage of no more than six hours.

The City Council’s Water Conservation Project will involve the installation of 80 to 100 bulk meters on trunk mains over the course of the next 12 months, enabling leaks to be pinpointed far more quickly and accurately.

Fitted with what are known as ‘data loggers’, the new meters will feed back, on-the-spot information to the city’s water nerve centre at Terryland – up until now the city was broken up into four main supply regions.

The installation of the bulk meters – in no way related to the metering of domestic supplies – will begin on the western fringes of the city initially (Cappagh Road/Ballymoneen next week) and then gradually move across the urban area to the east on an area by area basis.

While each meter installation could take a number of days with the digging up and restoration of the section of roadway, the water outage for residents will be confined to a maximum six hour period in one day, according to the City Council.

The Council have also been liaising with retail, hospitality and industrial customers in an effort to minimise disruption to the business life of the town.

Each of the new meters will control the supply to between 500 and 1,000 houses – the €700,000 contract, funded centrally by the Dept. of the Environment, is being carried out by the Mayo based Shareridge company.

The installation of the meters will enable water technicians to isolate leaks far more quickly and to ‘zoom in’ on sections of pipeline leading to quicker repairs and the replacement of certain sections of mains if necessary.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.