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Inis Mórto

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March/April 2022 73Health ofcer visited in 2018. He recorded complaints of “nausea, headaches, irritation of the eyes and stomach sickness”. He wrote that: ‘’The ponding was so thick and stagnant that birds and wildlife were walking along this pond of waste”. “Both solidifed and liquid material” were reported “at least 0.5-0.75 metres in depth”.As for beginning the work on the Council Cottages site, an Irish Water email dated 2 November 2021 made it clear: “As well as not having the resources to run tender, we haven’t the capability to do any required design work either’, As to the Public Toilets and their unauthorised connections, almost 10 years after first prosecuting Galway County Council for a failure to clean up the Council Cottages discharge, the EPA commenced proceeding in 2021 against Irish Water for the failure of the Public Toilet. With no planning permission, no EIA, and no Natura 2000 Impact statement, Irish Water instead lined up on the dock at Galway 20 purafow units for the Council Cottages, telling residents that: “As there is no funding in place for the site, this need will compete for funding along with other national needs in the next Investment Plan (2025-29)”. The February 2022 screening for an Appropriate Assessment under the Habitats Directive for the 20 units failed to mention the adjacent protected lagoon. Called in by residents, solicitors for Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) stopped all work on 11 February 2021. ‘Kilronan and Killeany Sewerage Scheme’. A treatment plant was costed at €7.2 million with a Time for Delivery of 2014. On 6 June 2013 the Environmental Protection Agency brought its frst prosecution under the Waste Water Discharge (Authorisation) Regulations. In Kilronan District Court it prosecuted Galway County Council for its failure to control the pollution – from the Council Cottages only. In October 2014, a certifcate of authorisation was issued for a constructed wetland to deal with the sewage – again only for the Council Cottages. Good for one year, it was extended for a further year, costed at €350,000, and never built.A 2017 Galway County Council site-inspection report again warned that: This cesspool poses a serious environmental and public health and safety issue”. But Galway County Council published its own legal opinion the following year that the matter was not the responsibility of Galway County Council but of Irish Water.The Health and Safety Authority Environmental InIreland, raw sewage runs freely from the mountains to the sea. 54% of urban sewage is classified untreated by EU legal standards. There are 400,000 to 500,000 septic tanks across Ireland which an EU Court case required Ireland to inspect from 2014. The subsequent septic-tank inspection system of 1,000 per year shows average failure of over 50%. And of those failed, the failure rate of householders to fx the failed systems has risen every year since inspections began in 2014 – and is now more than 50%.Ireland is awash with raw sewage. It sinks into our groundwater and contaminates our surface waters, leaving us with the highest cryptosporidiosis infection rate in Europe. The debilitating parasite was responsible for the virtual close down of Galway’s mains water system in 2007. Statistics show an increase in incidence in the last two years of 33%. And it’s not just animal faeces. Recent studies have shown toxic chemicals and pharmaceuticals in wastewater have reached a third of global rivers, causing not only pollution but contributing to the build-up of antimicrobial resistance in humansBut nowhere can it be more fagrant than on Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands (population 870). 160,000 tourists visit the island each year. Each time they use the public toilet in Cill Rónáin their faeces pool in an open cesspit a few hundred metres below the village. If it rains hard and there are many tourists, raw sewage runs down the main street.Up to a dozen businesses have unauthorised connections to the small septic-tank system which serves the Public Toilet and which now overfows and ponds on the surface where the original septic tank stands. In the next feld, a separate long-failed septic tank is host to the raw sewage from 10 houses, known as the Council Cottages, only metres away.Both are separated only by a traditional stone wall from a protected coastal lagoon, listed as Annex I in the Habitats Directive – the most important habitats.Kilronan/Cill Rónáin was one of 46 schemes approved by Minister Síle de Valera in 2003 at a projected total cost of €350 million for some 46 schemes. It never happened. Water Needs Assessments confrmed the need in 2006 and again in 2009. In 2008, the Council published the The ponding was so thick and stagnant that birds and wildlife were walking along this pond of waste. Both solidifed and liquid material were reported ‘at least 0.5-0.75 metres in depthInis MórtoThe biggest Aran island is awash with raw sewage but after years of neglect a legal action has been initiatedBy Tony LowesENVIRONMENT

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