The Liffey - Dirty Old Town

DUBLIN City and County Councils are spending a total of £25 million in a mammmoth plan to save the Liffey. The Government granted much of the money after the Water Pollution Act of 1977 gave local authorities power to carry out mecessary improvements in their own areas. The plan invollves a new drainage and treatmet works, a new sewerage tunnel, pumping station, and ancillary works. All this will come into operation in the early eighties.

The river has a good history of pollution. Back in the nineeteenth century justices in the bankside courts refused to sit on humid summer days as a result of the stench. But sewerrage was directed straight into the river in those days and things have improved since then. The late nineteenth cenntury saw an increasing awareeness of the need for sanitation, and in 1906 a major drainage system was constructed to divert the muck to a drainage works in Pigeonhouse Street.

Pollution nowadays is mainly the result of industrial effluents from factories in the Dublin county area. The paper mills of Clondalkin and Killeen are major offenders, discharging harmful chemical pollutants down the Cammock river and into the Liffey at Kingsbridge by Heuston Station.

But the problem is two edged. David Byrne, Principal Officer in the Community and Environment Department of the Dublin Corporation said it wasn't a question of goodies and baddies.

"I wouldn't like to suggest this is a cowboys and Indians set up. We're all thankful that these industries did grow up and help develop the region. The problem now is that the infrastructure hasn't been able to cope with the pressure.

There have been attempts by the industries concerned to get rid of the waste in other ways over the years, but its clear now that this programme is necesssary for all sides."

He added that the industries would be spending their own money in connecting their systems to the scheme.

"It'll be a slow process, but the only quick solution would be to shut down all the factories tomorrow and throw thousands of people out of work," he said.

The Greater Dublin Drainnage Scheme will do more than just clean up the Liffey.

The plan originated in order to create adequate drainage provisions for the development areas of Tallaght, Blanchardsstown, and Clondalkin. This is where most of the industrial effluent originates. Some of the basic work is already complete. Three pipes have been connstructed to converge at Inchiicore where a huge tunnel will take the waste on to the now extended drainage works at Pigeon house Street. There the waste will be treated to be finally discharged as solid sludge miles out into the Irish Sea.

And would Dubliners enjoy a new and fragrant Liffey when the plan was completed? It seems not. Chemical pollutants, while hazardous to fish and plant life, are not what causes that pungent city stink. The problem is common to all rivers near their tidal estuary. All kinds of depositions accumulate over the years and at low tide, especially on warm days, vapours inevitably rise up froin the mud. David Byrne's departtment supervised bulldozing the beds of the river some years ago. But the results have been short term. It looks like we'll be living with a whiffy Liffey for a good few years.