Irish Water invest €30m in its Kerry treatment plant
OVER 62,000 people and an estimated 1.2m tourists annually will now have a safe secure supply of water thanks to the opening of a new water treatment facility in Killarney this week.
Furthermore, the opening of the new Kerry Central Regional Water Treatment Plant at Loughguittane just outside Killarney, on Tuesday means that Kerry is now complaint with European environmental standards and the Environmental Protection Agency has removed the supply from its Remedial Action List which is a list of ‘at risk’ water supplies.
The new €30m water treatment facility will supply Killarney, Tralee, Castleisland and Castlemaine.
Work began in 2016 and took almost two years to complete and included construction of a new water treatment plant and associated upgrade works on existing infrastructure.
The new plant, which provides 51 million litres of water a day, has a hydroelectric power turbine for the intake of water, state-of-the-art water filtration, disinfection, chlorination and fluoridation capability; as well as capacity to store 15 million litres of treated water (the equivalent of six Olympic sized swimming pools).
Tourism minister Brendan Griffin and Mayor of Kerry Cllr Norma Foley performed the official opening at the plant in the company of Moira Murrell, Chief Executive of Kerry County Council, Mike Quinn CEO of Ervia, Eamon Gallen Managing Director of Killarney National Park.
Mayor Foley said it is great to see Irish Water investing in Kerry.
“It is great to see Irish Water investing in projects such as this. I look forward to more days like today when we will again see investment that will deliver upgraded facilities and services to the benefit of the people of Kerry.”
Minister Griffin also welcomed the investment which he said is one of the country’s largest plants and will have significant benefits for the area.
The new plant has also been short-listed in the Engineering Project of Year in Engineers Ireland Excellence Awards.