Page 81 - ANNUAL REPORT 2016

Water services

The Water Services Department of Wexford County Council is responsible for the provision and
maintenance of the county’s water infrastructure. We do so under a Service Level Agreement
(SLA) with Irish Water who recoup the costs involved back to Wexford County Council. Our water
infrastructure is made up of approximately 2,050 km of water supply piping, 442 km of sewer,
some 100 water treatment plants, more than 50 sewerage treatment plants, 130 wells and 8
water abstraction locations.

In addition to the above, the Council supports a large number of group water and sewerage
schemes. These are privately owned networks, constructed and maintained locally with the
support of Wexford County Council.

In 2016, Wexford County Council spent €8.63m in the provision of water services which was
recouped through the SLA from Irish Water.

Waste Water

On behalf of Irish Water Wexford County Council continue to operate 186 facilities, and 442km
of public sewer throughout the county, treating the waste from both domestic and
trade/industrial sources. There are also five wastewater treatment plants operated by private
contractors.

drinking Water

On behalf of Irish Water Wexford County Council continues to operate 145 facilities and 2,050
km of public water mains serving approximately 115,000 people. Drinking water production in
2016 was 11,902,942m3.

Wexford County Council also supervises the operation of the group water schemes (68 schemes
serving approximately 4,200 people) and the Individual Well Grant scheme. There were 262 new
applications in 2016 making a total of 6,516 individual well grants administered to date.

The Council also administers Grant Aid to existing group water schemes and new group sewerage
schemes under the measures provided for under the Rural Water Multi-Annual Programme
2016–2018.

Approximately 75% of the population of County Wexford is served by public water, 5% by group
water schemes and 20% by private wells.

Drinking Water Quality Compliance with microbiological, chemical and indicator standards laid
down by SI 122 (2014) were 98.21%, 97.83% and 96.47% respectively.

The percentage of unaccounted for water (UFW) for 2016 is measured at 35.2% or
13,689m3/day. This is based on occupancy as per the CSO figure for Wexford of 2.75. In 2016
573 leaks on public watermains were repaired. (The target figure for UFW for a rural county like
Wexford is 20–25%.).

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