Mayo county council is asking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose a fine on Irish Water daily, as Irish Water continues to discharge untreated sewerage into the Bay at Newport.
It follows a motion proposed and adopted at this week’s monthly meeting of Mayo County Council, after the ongoing frustration with the situation was again raised by Westport based councillor Brendan Mulroy.
Irish Water, now known as Uisce Éireann, had promised that the new treatment plant would be completed in 2023 but now it looks like that date has been pushed out to 2028.
Councillor Mulroy has failed to secure a start or completion date for the new treatment plant from Uisce Eireann over the past number of months, and eventually got the new proposed completion date from the EPA.
The Fianna Fail councillor working with the late Mayo News journalist Neil O’Neill first highlighted the issue of untreated sewerage being pumped into the bay at Newport, back in 2015.
Up until that time, both Mayo County Council and Irish Water refused to acknowledge that the practice had been in operation for decades.
Newport is the only town in Mayo to be identified by the EPA where raw sewage is being released untreated into the environment.
Councillor Mulroy told Midwest News Editor Teresa O’Malley that the situation is completely unacceptable and while the EPA has given him a proposed completion date for a new treatment plant in Newport, in the interim, he is adamant that the water utility company needs to be held accountable….