Reminder: Irish Water holds public webinars and seeks feedback on its draft Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region

Irish Water’s statutory public consultation on its draft Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands (RWRP-EM) Region will continue to run until 14 March 2022. The three-month public consultation began on 14 December 2021 and sets out the options for providing a more secure, reliable and sustainable water supply for 2.5 million customers in the Eastern and Midlands region over the next 25 years.

This public consultation is everyone’s opportunity to feed into the process of how Irish Water identifies the water supply issues in the region and determines what the options are to provide a more resilient water supply to customers.

Reminder: Irish Water holds public webinars and seeks feedback on its draft Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region

Public webinars will be held on February 2, 3, 7 and 8. These webinars will provide information on the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands and allow opportunities to pose questions to inform submissions. If you would like to be part of an online public webinar on the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands and associated environmental reports, you can provide an expression of interest on our website at www.water.ie/rwrp/easternmidlands

Irish Water’s National Water Resources Plan will be the first resources plan for the entire public water supply in Ireland. It is split into four regions and the first regional plan to be developed is the draft Regional Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region.

There are 201 Water Treatment Plants in the Eastern and Midlands Region, which collectively serve 2.48 million people or 60% of the population of Ireland, via approximately 19,000 kilometres of distribution network and 134 Water Resource Zones. These treatment plants also serve 76,000 businesses. The region itself covers approximately 20,900 square kilometres extending from the Shannon Estuary in the south west, towards the large River Boyne catchment and Greater Dublin Area (GDA) in the north east.

The draft plan describes the Eastern and Midland Region and the current challenges faced now and into the future in terms of delivering a safe, secure and resilient water supply.

Speaking about the public consultation on the draft plan, Angela Ryan, Water Resource Strategy Specialist for Irish Water said, “Public consultation on the draft plan is now underway. Development of the draft plan will allow Irish Water for the first time to review water supply needs collectively across the entire Eastern and Midlands Region covering a broad spectrum of risk including quality, quantity, reliability and sustainability. It will allow us to consider local options to resolve these needs and larger regional options that can address multiple supplies.

“The draft Regional Plan will also offer key benefits in terms of transformation of our supplies, including the ability to cater for growth and economic development in a sustainable way, improved interconnectivity between our supplies to ensure balanced regional development, and new sustainable water sources that are adaptable to climate change such as the new Shannon source which is coming from the largest catchment in Ireland.

“If people are interested in our plans for the Eastern and Midlands Region, they are welcome to join one of our public webinars in February and hear more from our team,” explained Angela.

Irish Water is now seeking feedback on the public consultation for the draftRWRP: EMand associated SEA Environmental Report and Natura Impact Statement. The documents are available to view on our website at www.water.ie/rwrp/easternmidlands

A 13-week statutory public consultation will continue to run until 14 March 2022.

Submissions can be made by post or email by 14 March 2022.

Email: nwrp@water.ie

Post:  National Water Resources Plan, Irish Water, PO Box 13216, Glenageary, Co. Dublin

All submissions will be taken into consideration and responses to the issues raised will be summarised in a Consultation Report which will be published on www.water.ie/nwrp.

To reserve a place on the public webinar, click on the following link: https://freebusy.io/nwrp.irishwater@gmail.com/rwrpem

Reminder: Irish Water holds public webinars and seeks feedback on its draft Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region

Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands Region- The above map outlines the area which is covered by the RWRP EM. A full list of townlands, towns, settlements and counties included in the RWRP EM can be found www.water.ie/rwrp/easternmidlands

Study Area Technical Reports

To deliver the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands, we subdivided the region into smaller units to enable us to manage the process of identifying potential water supply solutions (options) and the selection of our Preferred Approaches to resolve our water supply and water quality deficits. These smaller units are referred to as Study Areas (SA).

A detailed Technical Report is provided for each SA describing the solution types at SA level and providing a summary of the detailed Option and Approach Development process and resulting outcomes for each SA. The SA technical reports are provided as appendices to the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands document.

The Eastern and Midlands Region comprises nine Study Areas as shown in the figure below.

Reminder: Irish Water holds public webinars and seeks feedback on its draft Regional Water Resources Plan for the Eastern and Midlands Region

Irish Water is inviting feedback on the draft Regional Water Resources Plan (RWRP) Eastern and Midlands, the SEA Environmental Report and the Natura Impact Statement (NIS). In particular, we are inviting feedback on the following questions:

  1. The Eastern & Midlands region baseline is discussed in section 2 of the draft draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands. Do you have any comments on the Eastern and Midlands region or in respect of the population growth and economic development and how this is considered in our water resources planning approach?
  2. Within the Eastern and Midlands region we consider 134 water supplies (Water Resource Zones) represented across nine Study Areas. Do you have any comments on the Study Area delineation?
  3. Section 3 of the draft draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands and each of the technical appendices 1-9 outline the need (deficits) in both quantity and quality across the region and in each of the Study Areas. Do you have any comment on the need (deficit)?
  4. Interim Solutions are outlined in sections 4,7 and 8 of the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands and in each of the technical appendices 1-9. Have you any comments on this as a strategy of reducing risk to water supplies while developing our Preferred Approaches?
  5. Section 6 and the technical appendices 1-9 of the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands summarises our Options Development Process. Do you have any comments on how the feasible options for the Water Resource Zones (WRZs) Study Areas and the Region have been identified?
  6. Section 7 sets out how the Preferred Approach is identified at WRZ and Study Area level. Each Preferred Approach will outline how it intends to address the need in the relevant area. Technical appendices for Study Areas 1-9 and Environmental Review for Study Areas 1-9 will set out how the Preferred Approach has been identified in more detail. Have you any feedback on any of the WRZ Preferred Approach or Study Area Preferred Approach?
  7. The draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands will look at a range of solutions to meet the need in a Water Resource Zone or Study Area. These solutions are not limited by distance, therefore some solutions for the Water Resource Zone or Study Area will optimize regional transfers. For example, there are [33] Water Resource Zones in the draft RWRP-EM which could benefit from regional transfers. Section 8 of the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands outlines how the regional solution will be identified and compared against the solution that sees each Study Area meeting its own needs. Have you any comments on the Regional Preferred Approach?
  8. Do you have any comments on the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Environmental Report and Natura Impact Statement (NIS) which accompany the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands?
  9. We have produced a Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands Consultation Roadmap. Do you have any comments on this?
  10. How would you like Irish Water to communicate with you as the draft Regional Water Resources Plans progress?

Submissions will not be individually responded to but will be summarised in a Consultation Report, which will be published on www.water.ie/nwrp.

All submissions made on the draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands and associated environmental reports will be reviewed and relevant feedback incorporated into the final draft Regional Water Resources Plan Eastern and Midlands and associated SEA Statement. Submissions from individuals will be reported anonymously and feedback from organisations will be attributed to them.

View our updated Privacy Notice at www.water.ie/privacy-notice which is in line with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) effective from 25 May 2018.

Comments are closed.