UP TO 80,000 homes in north Dublin remain without water supply this morning after a major pipeline burst early yesterday. Engineers from Fingal County Council worked overnight in the hope of restoring supply by late morning or early afternoon today.
The trunk pipeline, which is 30 in in diameter, burst at about 6 a.m. at Forest Road in Swords. The force of the eruption caused the road to collapse to a third of its width, bringing down a neighbouring wall and leaving a 10-ft crater.
About 20,000 homes in the Swords area were affected at first but water shortages later spread to Malahide, Rush and Skerries as the Ballycoolen reservoir emptied.
"Our crews were at the scene within an hour or so and have been working flat out since," said Mr Liam Coughlan, the council's senior engineer in charge of water and drainage.
"With an operation such as this you hope it would take between 24 and 36 hours so there's a reasonable expectation supply will be back by midday."
Mobile tankers were installed in about half a dozen locations in Malahide and Swords to provide water to affected households.
Mr Coughlan said that before supply could be restored, the water flow from the reservoir would have to be restarted. That was a delicate operation as it could expose other weak points in the system.
As a safety precaution, the reservoir was not allowed to run dry. At most, it has the capacity to provide water to north Dublin for 24 hours.
Mr Coughlan said the pipeline which burst was "at the end of its life". The last time it burst was twice in December 1997, after which the council agreed to lay a second back-up pipeline.
The Department of Environment has approved funding for the £3.5 million project, which was due to begin later this week.
These works have now been postponed pending an assessment of the water supply and demand balance. A decision will be made early next week on when they will begin.
In the interim, a special notice published regarding water restrictions for March 12th-14th has been withdrawn. The pressure reductions within the local authority area, however, will continue until Easter.
Mr Coughlan stressed that yesterday's burst was unrelated to the new pipeline works.
