Dear Councillor,
The water supply situation deteriorated further last night:
27th December 2010 - Production 554.2Mld Demand - 624.7Mld
This represents a loss of over 70Mld. Storage at Stillorgan is now down to 551.5Mld. It must be remembered the lowest we have ever gone in Stillorgan has been around 400MLd and in effect that is rock bottom. If we combine the impact of the last two days there has been a loss of 130Mld. This is unprecedented and the worst two day event on record. As pointed out yesterday the rapid thaw is having a disastrous effect. Temperatures have changed by almost 25 degrees over three days. We have mobilised all crews to both identify leaks and to deal with burst pipes. We are also appealing to homeowners and all key holders for businesses, schools etc to check for leaks within their property. There are problems all over the country with reservoirs at record low levels.
The very restrictive regime will have to continue. As many schools and businesses are still closed for the Christmas period we are applying restrictions and widespread cut-offs from 6pm this evening to 12 noon tomorrow. Details are being uploaded onto our website and should be available from 1pm. It should also be noted that there could be loss of supply in other areas at short notice due to broken mains and every effort will be made to advise people of these more localised problems on the website also.
We sterilised our tankers yesterday in preparation for assisting in the most affected areas today and again these will be on website from 1pm. Already a tanker is being deployed deployed to the Middle Third in Killester and we are in the process of deploying a tanker to Artane Castle. Our converted Fire Engine is filling tanks for hostels, nursing homes and hospitals as required.
Brian McKeown and Michael Phillips are continuing to do various radio and TV news programmes to highlight the current difficulties. We have customer service staff in to assist with taking calls from consumers.
Yours Sincerely,
John Tierney
City Manager
