Wastewater management failures harm environment and threaten health

Regulators warn that widespread wastewater treatment failures are damaging ecosystems and threatening public health.

Environmental regulators report that inadequate wastewater infrastructure managed by the national utility poses serious risks to public health and nature. Hundreds of operational incidents last year included massive spills of untreated sewage into local waterways. The findings highlight persistent structural deficiencies in the national treatment network.

• The incidentsPublic health faced hazards from 600 separate plant failures recorded over the previous year.
• The spillsNine million litres of raw sewage discharged from a single Donegal facility over a six-day period.
• The agencyThe Environmental Protection Agency issued the warnings in its latest compliance assessment.