Garry kept the water flowing in North Sligo
WHAT do you do when the well runs dry?
One local man Garry Dykes, caretaker at the North Sligo Public Water Supply has been praised for the lengths he went to, to ensure customers had enough water during the recent drought conditions.
As reported in The Sligo Champion last month, customers in the North Sligo area were at risk of having night time water cuts after three streams supplying it had almost dried up by 3rd July.
Faced with the very real prospect of taps running dry in North Sligo in over 4,000 households, Garry single handedly worked day and night to juggle water supplies from the three water sources supplying the area: Gortnaleck Stream, Lyle Stream and Ardnaglass Stream.
It was the worst drought conditions Garry had seen in his five and half years working at the Ballintrillick plant.
“I had to seal the streams with sandbags limiting any water getting past. I was saving every drop I could,” he told this newspaper.
On the worst day of the drought, Garry noticed that a 6” pipe from the river to the plant which is never normally visible was almost fully exposed due to the low water levels.
When the main water source at Gortnaleck dried up, Garry turned to Lyle and Ardnaglass streams, put measures in place to contain whatever water was there and direct it into the treatment plant.
Garry monitored for leaks and bursts “day and night”, checking the data on his laptop through the evenings and nights and reporting leaks for network maintenance crews to repair.
He also had to continuously monitor the final treated water quality to ensure it complied with drinking water regulations on top of his water conservation work.
“Garry has done an amazing job in tough conditions, but he wasn’t alone. There are hundreds of other care takers, local authority staff and Irish Water staff right across the country who have worked tirelessly during these difficult conditions to maintain a water supply to our thousands of customers,” a spokesperson for Irish Water told The Sligo Champion.
As the photos above demonstrate, water supplies in North Sligo were almost completely dried up in early July during the heatwave.
“They help illustrate the lengths Garry Dykes had to go to, to ensure planned outages didn’t need to be imposed and the 4,377 customers supplied by the scheme continued to enjoy an uninterrupted supply,” said the Irish Water spokesperson.
“When you consider the scheme had full raw water availability at the water treatment plant on June 21 and by July 3 the source was in a potential drought condition, this shows how quickly the situation escalated,” they added. Water levels are rising at the three streams following recent heavy rainfall and the scheme is no longer in drought condition: “Things are back to normal at the plant,” said Garry.