A REAL PIPE DREAM
THE company that brought the water supply back to thousands of people in the Drogheda region had to relocate out of the town - because of too much water!
Elstan Engineering, run by Anthony O’Connell, moved to Balbriggan 15 years ago because of flood damage at their base in Greenhills.
And two members of the 10 strong team working on the project had more reason than most to make sure the repair job was spot on as they live in Drogheda and had no water in their homes!
The staff worked around the clock from Saturday to Wednesday to put the bespoke pipe fitting (pictured on the site, right) together.
‘We manage these special bespoke fittings for a number of local authorities and this time, they had a problem and no solutions to it. I called in a lot of favours and we got stuff rolled for the part in Galway and Belfast. There were four different parts to the bespoke fitting and we put it all together here,’ Anthony stated.
‘It was an unusual problem because we had no parts that would do the job and we had to manufacture the parts from scratch,’ the Elstan boss said.
He said: ‘Everyone was holding their breath waiting for the water to come back on. We had a feeling it would work but you still hold your breath.’
There has been a huge fallout from the chronic situation that left large areas without water for days and saw the army deployed to man water stations late last week.
Most areas had their supply back by the weekend. Now, a plan is being put together to replace the 2.2km stretch of pipe from the Boyne to Staleen with a new one inside the next 18 months at a cost of up to €3m.
A NEW pipe from the Boyne to Staleen is the only solution to preventing a return of last week’s water issues in the region.
Cathaoirleach of Laytown/Bettystown Municipal Council, Paddy Meade, who was on site for much of the events over the past week, says it is now vital.
‘I will continue to lobby for a full new pipe to be laid from Roughgrange to Staleen Water Plant and as part of that I process I brought Minister Eoghan Murphy to visit the site where I was delighted that he was won over on the idea, and he spoke very strongly on the issue to Irish Water Officials during our meeting,’ he stated.
‘I found the minister’s intervention very productive, and while the council, emergency, and voluntary services did a great job, the serious issue of the delay has to be looked at and he’s committed to reviews all aspects of this once complete.
‘He gave great encouragement regarding getting a new pipe constructed the full 2.2k from Roughgrange to Staleen. The minister spoke about how this was the worst water leak in the history of Irish water and how this had to be a priority.’