asked the Minister for the Environment if he will outline the circumstances whereby his Department requested Dublin County Council to add a main sewer pipe to the Kinsealy-Feltrim scheme across property known as Abbeville to service a group of cottages which already has a perfectly adequate scheme in existence.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Written Answers. - Kinsealy-Feltrim (Dublin) Sewerage Scheme.
47.
The facts in relation to the Feltrim/Kinsealy sewerage scheme are as follows:
It has been the policy of Dublin County Council for over ten years to provide modern sewage treatment facilities for clusters of houses throughout their county. As part of their overall programme, the county council submitted to the Department in 1979 plans for a sewerage scheme to serve houses in the Feltrim/Kinsealy area. The scope of the scheme was extended by the council in 1981 and the extended scheme was approved by the Department in that year. In October 1985 the council sought approval to borrow over £1 million to finance the scheme. In view of the restrictions on the overall amount of capital available for sanitary services schemes and the number of other high priority schemes competing for the available capital, it was not possible to commit finance to the scheme at that time.
When the scheme came up for consideration during 1987, it was decided to ask the county council to have their proposals re-examined with a view to having the scheme extended to provide for the disposal of sewage from the Baskin cottages and, possibly, other existing houses in the area. This decision took account of the following facts:
(a) that capacity was then available in the new Malahide sewage treatment works (to which the Feltrim scheme was to be connected); (b) that the proposed sewage pipelines would pass very close to the outfall from the Baskin cottages scheme; (c) that when the Baskin scheme was being considered in 1974, the technical advice available was that very small dilutions were available in the stream to which the effluent was to discharge; (d) that, at minimum flows, the discharge to the stream would be just tolerable; and (e) that it was the general practice of the county council, where possible, to connect to a main sewer and thereby eliminate small treatment works, communal septic tanks, etc., when the opportunity arises.
It appeared, therefore, that there would be advantage in connecting the sewage from the Baskin cottages to the new scheme, a view which was subsequently endorsed by the county manager in the light of water pollution considerations and the operational savings which would ensue, The county manager also indicated that the treatment works at the Baskin had its limitations, especially in terms of capacity.
In May 1988 Dublin County Council sought approval to the original scheme with an extension costing £78,000 to serve the Baskin cottages. Approval for the complete scheme, then estimated to cost £1.1 million, issued to the county council in June 1988. This approval was not, however, the end of the matter since it was for the elected members of Dubin County Council to decide (when the matter was brought before them by the manager under section 2 (7) of the City and County Management (Amendment) Act, 1955) whether the scheme should go ahead. I understand that the scheme was, in fact, considered at a meeting of the Fingal Committee (to which the relevant functions of the council have been delegated) on 1 May 1989 and that the committee approved the Manager's proposal that it should go ahead. Dublin County Council have sought approval to the acceptance of a tender in the amount of £720,786 for the civil works part of the scheme and approval was conveyed to the council on 2 May 1989.