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Critical water repairs completed in Greater Dublin Area

The repairs to the pipeline, which supplies water to 1.7 million people, were deemed urgent
The repairs to the pipeline, which supplies water to 1.7 million people, were deemed urgent

Uisce Éireann has confirmed that the critical and highly complex repairs to a major trunk water main connecting its Ballymore Eustace Water Treatment Plant to the Saggart Reservoir in Co Dublin have been successfully completed.

The work on the pipeline, which supplies 220 million litres of water to 1.7 million people in the Greater Dublin area every day, began on Monday night.

It necessitated interruptions to water supplies in Dublin and Wicklow.

This included low water pressure, discoloured water and no water supply in some cases.

This included 5,000 customers in Naas, Co Kildare and the surrounding area who had no water supply from 9am to 5pm yesterday.

The repairs to the trunk water main were deemed urgent after innovative technology enabled Uisce Éireann to identify significant cracks and damage at a pipeline joint deep underground.

It said the damage it identified meant there was a serious risk of a major burst.

If that had happened, it would have caused enormous disruption and jeopardised fully one-third of all the water supplied to the Greater Dublin Area for a number of weeks.

The area affected by recent critical pipeline repairs

The damaged pipe was laid down in the 1980s.

It is wide enough for a person to stand up in and is buried up to four metres underground.

To minimise water supply disruption while the repair work was being carried out Uisce Éireann ensured reservoirs in the greater Dublin area were full.

It then turned off the flow of water through the damaged trunk water main late on Monday night so that excavation crews could start the repair.

A large area around the leaking part of the pipe was cleared so engineers could access it.

The excavation hole alone was 14 metres wide and five metres deep.

The damage to the pipework was located at a point where two sections of pipe join together.

This enabled the point of damage to be encased in a special 'collar' to fix the weakness that had occurred.

There was however, a very significant worry that when the excavation work was done Uisce Éireann’s engineers may have discovered the damage was greater than anticipated and that entire sections of pipework could have needed to be replaced.

Engineers cleared a large area around the leaking part of the pipe to access it

If that had occurred, the disruption to water supplies in the Dublin area would have been very considerable and lasted for weeks.

Fortunately for householders and businesses that did not happen, and damaged pipework has now been repaired with the minimum amount of disruption.

The critical repairs were completed early this morning and water is now refilling the network.

Water has now been flowing back into all treated water reservoirs in the Dublin area throughout today.

Uisce Éireann says the risk to supplies is over.

Most reservoirs in the Kildare area are also recovering.

Nevertheless, Uisce Éireann is again asking the public in the Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow area to continue to make every effort to conserve water while the network is refilling following the shut-off period.

This will help all customers have a full water supply as quickly as possible.

The critical repairs were completed in the early hours of the morning

It has also warned that as the network continues to replenish, customers in Dublin, Kildare and Wicklow may be impacted by low water pressure and discoloured water throughout today, while customers in the north Naas area will see their water returned over the course of the day.

Margaret Attridge, Head of Water Operations for Uisce Éireann, said that forward planning has been crucial to the success of these highly complex works and minimising the impact to customers in the Greater Dublin Area.

"Safeguarding water for customers was our primary objective in planning and implementing this challenging repair. Extensive preparation took place in advance to enable us to carry out these works and minimise impact on water supplies.

"We would like to thank the crews who worked throughout the day and night from Uisce Éireann, Local Authorities and our contractor GMC.

"This section of water main was at risk of bursting and causing major disruption for 1.7 million customers, unless repair works were carried out."