Team Geared Up

Photo by Geared Up

Walkers on the cliffs of Howth on Saturday will have noticed a brown foamy scum on the water. The above photo I captured at the slack patch of the high tide when it gathered at the old sewage pipe outlet. All the sewage in North Dublin used to be pumped off Howth Head through this pipe, which ‘broke’ mysteriously 10-20 meters off-shore while they were laying it. Suggestions are that they never even tried to lay the whole thing. Since they built the multy-million euro pumping station at sutton they have been pumping the Northsides sewage out to Ringsend where it gets processed and cleaned.

To my knowledge the sewage past the pumping station (Howth’s own) still goes out the pipe (pipe is downhill all the way to the sea!). But since they’ve begun pumping the rest away the water quality off Howth has improved dramatically, divers are saying the wildlife around Ireland’s Eye is at it’s best with the best water clarity they’ve ever seen. This is why I was disappointed to see this foam on the surface on Saturday. It’s unusual and not a good sign.

Dublin City Council say:

The untreated sewage discharge off Howth has ended.

Well it clearly hasn’t.

They also say:

The four pumps are capable of pumping nearly 3 cubic metres/sec. They would empty the Nation Aquatic Centres 50 metre pool in less than 12 minutes.

Dear god. That’s a hole lot of shit. Can you imagine that has been going into Dublin Bay raw for decades.

(My other conclusion was that allot of rain run-off was visible with the 2 streams on-route very full. Maybe something had been washed out of the ground. Although on my run today, there was no run-off, and still brown foam.)