I wasn’t surprised to hear that a judge recently described as “extraordinary”, that almost two thirds of a Cork seaside town’s raw sewage was being pumped directly into the local harbour. Tom Tuite reported in the Irish Examiner, that Judge John Brennan said he had “grave concerns” and it was “extraordinary” that in 2018 raw sewage was being pumped into the sea there.
That might be news to some people, but not me because I witnessed it for myself many moons ago. Back in the 1970’s, I was working with my father who was in the building game at the time, and we were called out to a house where there was a problem with the sewage system. The owner of the house was a client of his and her system was completely backed up.
It was an old house with a long back garden on the outskirts of Cobh, looking across the river at Passage West. It was a lovely spot, particularly on a sunny day. The garden overlooked the river, or a stony beach, depending on whether the tide was in or out.
Anyway, we set about our task by lifting the manhole cover and we used sewer rods to try to dislodge the blockage. Despite adding more and more rods, we were making very little progress. It was a hot day and all the pushing and pulling was starting to take its toll. The odour wasn’t exactly helping either.
We decided to try another approach, so we poured caustic soda down the drains and into the manhole. Caustic soda is tricky stuff, so we mixed it in a galvanised bucket and handled it carefully because it’s toxic.
We left that to ferment for a few hours before returning for a further assault with the rods. After lots more pushing and pulling, there was a distant rumbling sound as if there was thunder in the air down around Youghal.
The rumbling grew a bit louder and the ground started to vibrate a little underfoot like a mini earthquake. Suddenly there was a whoosh and a ton of raw sewage shot out through a pipe at the end of the garden and sprayed the beach below. It was like a bazooka and if anybody had been in the line of fire that day, they could have been buried under a pile of excrement.
Even though I knew that sewage was going directly into the harbour, it was still a shock to see so much of it in one go and that was just from a few houses. That was 40 years ago, and the population of the town has grown a lot since then.
When you consider the number of coastal villages, towns and cities around our island that are replicating this effluent disposal system and the amount of plastic we’re also adding to the oceans, I’m surprised that we can’t walk to Scotland at this stage.
An Environmental Protection Agency inspector told Judge Brennan that Castletownbere had a population of about 1,300 and 64%, of the waste there was untreated and carried by a pipe and discharged directly into the town’s harbour. When he lifted a manhole, he could see human waste travelling out into the harbour untreated.
Their sewage was discharged directly into the sea at a nearby beach. He showed the judge photos of it including one where children could be seen playing just 50 metres from a culvert carrying the sewage into the sea.
Irish Water said that every day, the equivalent of 20,000 wheelie bins of raw sewage is released into Cork Lower Harbour from the communities living around it. In 2014, there was the equivalent of 40,000 wheelie bins of sewage every day being dumped into the sea and that has been halved and by the time the main drainage project is completed in 2021, this will be reduced to zero.
I have always admired the Garda Water Unit for the difficult work that they do but they aren’t being paid half enough considering that they spend their time diving into an enormous septic tank.
When I lived in the countryside, I had a septic tank. For city slickers who have no idea what I’m talking about, a septic tank is a concrete container situated in the garden that collects the waste from the toilets. The tank has a drain which allows the liquid to filter into a soakaway, which is basically a huge hole full of stones. The solid waste remains in the tank and is reduced by bacteria. Every few years this tank is emptied, and, in some cases, it may never need to be cleaned out.
Before selling that house, Cork County Council insisted that I had to upgrade my system because it had been in place for over thirty years. So, I hired a guy to dig a new soakaway and some new drains that ran the length of the garden. An engineer passed it as fit, but Cork County Council had other ideas.
They instructed me to replace the tank and more or less start from scratch. So, I had to get the same guys back again to undo all the work they had done previously and put in further drains. It was a big job.
That work cost me a lot of money and aggravation, because Cork County Council were concerned about protecting the environment. Their concern for Mother Earth is admirable but while they were giving me a hard time, they were also allowing the equivalent of 40,000 wheelie bins of untreated raw sewage to be poured into the harbour every day.
But I think they have a secret plan. I reckon they got me to do all that work because they’re going to dump it all in my new tank.
What would happen if, in your circumstance, you couldn’t afford to dig a new tank? I expect you’d have conflict with council and probably live with an “unfit” waste system, with no incentive to do any more work lest you draw the wrath of council upon yourself.
Instead, surely it’s better or council to deem your works fit, and add a caveat that a new rank was required within 10 years (for example). That way, you can budget for the works, and superior outcomes are delivered.
Councils need to understand that individuals don’t budget for “extraordinary works”. At a minimum they need a reasonable lead time to procure the necessary financial means. This, to me, is the greater tragedy in your story.
I think your thought process is far too advanced and way beyond the comprehension of the local authority John. That’s way too sensible.