Untreated sewage is being pumped into the environment of eight areas across Donegal, the Environmental Protection Agency warns.
Deficiences in waste water treatment infrastructure is causing the release of untreated water into coastal waters and rivers of 21 Irish towns and cities and 36 smaller towns and villages every day.
The latest Urban Waste Water Treatment report found that raw sewage is flowing from the following eight Donegal areas:
Burtonport
Coolatee Housing Scheme
Falcarragh
Kerrykeel
Kilcar
Moville
Ramelton
Rathmullan
While plans are in place to add treatment sytems in all affected areas, it will be two-to-five years before the county’s infrastructure is fully adequate.
The EPA said the pace at which Irish Water is fixing the legacy of deficiencies in Ireland’s waste water treatment infrastructure is too slow.
Dr Tom Ryan, Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement said: “Inadequately treated waste water can pollute our environment and is a risk to people’s health. We are seeing repeated delays in providing treatment for many areas and it is not acceptable that 13 towns and villages will still have no waste water treatment by the end of 2021. Irish Water must speed up its delivery of key infrastructure.”
