Boost for Athlone's water supply as work begins at treatment plant

There's some good news this week for Athlone residents and businesses who have been struggling with water supply cuts for several years, as it's been confirmed that work is now underway to provide a temporary increase in capacity at the town's water treatment plant.

Cllr Frankie Keena said the work which had started at the plant in Marine View (pictured above) would increase the amount of water available for output in Athlone by two thousand mega litres per day.

Last October, Cllr Keena and then-Minister of State Kevin 'Boxer' Moran met with senior management from Irish Water in Dublin to discuss the frequent water outages that had been taking place in the Athlone area around the time.

"After a prolonged discussion, Irish Water stated that they would install a temporary upgrade to the Athlone Plant in 2020 and, further down the road, they will carry out a major upgrade of the plant at Marine View," said Cllr Keena this week.

"Thankfully, with the lifting of restrictions due to a reduction in Covid-19 cases, temporary work has now begun on site which, on completion, will cater for Athlone's current and future water demand needs over the next number of years.

"In addition to this, Irish Water had major successes in the Athlone area over the last year through its leakage reduction programme, where they have saved approximately 750,000 litres per day.

"The repair of a significant leak near the Battery Heights reservoir has resulted in further daily savings of 600,000 litres per day," said Cllr Keena.

"The combined impact of the completion of these temporary works at the Athlone Water Treatment Plant and the continuation of the leakage reduction programme will provide good news for residents and businesses in Athlone, as it was just unacceptable with the level of restrictions and outages they had to endure over the last couple of years.

"It will also be welcome news for the IDA and Enterprise Ireland as they continue their good work in looking to attract new industries to the town," he commented.

Last December, the Westmeath Independent reported that Athlone's inadequate water system had resulted in disruptions to supply every four days on average since the beginning of 2017.

A whopping 249 separate water supply cuts occurred in the Athlone area of Westmeath in less than three years, according to details obtained by this newspaper through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

The situation has stabilised since then, and supply disruptions have been much less frequent thus far in 2020.