Tea: Mourners' tea drains reservoir

Tea-drinking mourners emptied St Johnston reservoir


By Staff reporter

Published Date: 18 March 2008
Source: Journal Tuesday
Location: Derry

Mourners drank so much tea and coffee at three separate wake houses in a Donegal town recently, the local council reservoir ran out of water. According to Donegal County Councillor, Tony McDaid, council staff couldn't work out how the reservoir serving the St. Johnston area had suddenly run out of supply. He said it later emerged the three wakes in the locality had caused the problems.
“There were three large wakes at the same time,” he said. “With people making so much tea over the weekend, they actually emptied the reservoir.”

Details of the St. Johnston incident emerged at this week’s meeting of the Letterkenny Electoral Area Committee during a debate on the Glenmaquinn water supply outside Letterkenny.

Executive Engineer, James Kelly said on three separate days last month, residents served by the supply were left without water because of problems at the Listillion Reservoir.

Mr. Kelly said there were all sorts of reasons being suggested for the problems but the council had yet to discover what the real reason was.

“There’s talk of leaking pipes but that has still to be substantiated,” he said. “People were also wondering if farmers were using the water to divert water into slurry tanks to make the slurry easier mixed. That has also yet to be substantiated.”

Mr. Kelly said there were periods of frosty weather and the council engineers were thinking that maybe there were overground pipes left running in order to stop them from freezing.

The Executive Engineer said with the new boreholes development coming on stream in the Letterkenny area over the coming weeks, the hope is that the residents at Glenmaquinn will not have to face such supply shortages again.

Last Updated: 17 March 2008 1:36 PM