Summer drought fears in West Cork as Coppeen ‘runs dry’

A SPRING supply serving the village of Coppeen ran dry last week as drought conditions emerge throughout parts of West Cork.

Irish Water is closely monitoring water levels in Bantry, Durrus, Goleen, Crookhaven, Clonakilty, Skibbereen  and Glengarriff. Depending on the supply source, levels in lakes, rivers and ground water sources have run low, and reservoir storage levels are below optimum, it said.

The water outage due to drought started in Coppeen around midday on June 20th and lasted less than 24 hours.

Irish Water’s regional operations lead Niall O’Riordan said that since March, it has been carefully monitoring all raw water sources in Cork – the water from lakes, rivers, springs and ground sources that feed water treatment plants.

They are now appealing to residents and businesses in West Cork to be mindful of water usage because of the recent dry period.

‘West Cork is a beautiful and busy place at the best of times, but in the summer it is even busier,’ said Niall. ‘Many people will be outdoors a lot more, watering the garden or washing cars etc.

‘We are just asking people to be sensible about how they use their water so that we have enough for everyone to use during the daytime and that the businesses of West Cork can continue to operate as normal,’ he said.

‘We will continue to work with our colleagues in Cork County Council to monitor and manage supplies across the county to ensure the people in the area have a safe and reliable water supply throughout the summer.’

Irish Water have developed a conservation calculator so people can work out how much water they are currently saving and how they can conserve even more.

The free calculator is available on the Irish Water website at www.water.ie/calculator with other useful water saving tips.