‘Go easy on the -tapsor cuts will come’

July 1995

County Wexford’s water supplies are under pressure and cuts are on the way unless the fine weather ends, or households make an increased effort to reduce their consumption of water.

That is the message from Wexford County Council as water supply engineers keep a worried eye on reservoir, river, and bore hole levels around the county.

Seaside spots in particular are in trouble, with the Castlebridge, Curracloe and Blackwater areas among the worst because of the big increase in population created by holiday visitors.

In New Ross, where a technical difficulty has arisen, and Wexford town, where almost every summer brings water supply problems, special appeals have already been made to people to cut back on their use of water in the interest of a continued supply.

But the same applies to all areas of the county, according to the County Council’s Chief Environmental Officer Kieran O’Brien, who says that people should refrain from washing cars and watering gardens as long as the sunny spell continues.

‘Demand for water around the county has gone up a lot in the past few weeks, and supply has literally dried up considerably,’ he said.

‘We are not quite at crisis point yet, but we are not far from it. If this weather continues, we will be getting close to critical, and we may be left with no choice but to introducing rationing in certain areas at certain times.’