• Question: I live in Dunboyne and we are not able to drink the water. What type of bacteria would be in the water?

    Asked by jump46map to Philip, Maxime, Jake, Ann, Annette, Amy Heather on 11 Nov 2019. This question was also asked by time46map.
    • Photo: Ann Reen

      Ann Reen answered on 11 Nov 2019:


      Typical bacteria that could be in the water might be total coliforms or if the water was very contaminated E. Coli or Enterococcus Faecalis. But don’t worry because all public water must be tested for both these bugs and if either were detected then the public would be notified by means of local radio, leaflets, website etc.

    • Photo: Philip Schuler

      Philip Schuler answered on 12 Nov 2019:


      Also water supplied by the public may temporarily not be directly drinkable, in that case, Irish Water issues a “boil water notice” so you have to boil the water from the tab before drinking it. This is very important!.
      For your home, here is a note from Irish Water:
      https://www.water.ie/news/boil-water-notice-issued-5/

      It doen’t state the reason for it, other than the filters shall be exchanged.

    • Photo: Amy Heather Fitzpatrick

      Amy Heather Fitzpatrick answered on 14 Nov 2019:


      Hi. I’m very sorry that you haven’t been able to drink your tap water recently and I hope you get it back soon. It must be very inconvenient boiling water and/or buying bottled water. As far as I know, some of the concerns with your water being put on a boil water notice was actually to do more with parasites called Giardia and Crytosporidium. These parasites are usually removed by a combination of size separation using sedimentation and flocculation during water treatment. Sometimes if there is a lot of rainfall these systems do not work as efficiently as they should and not all the water is treated and it can almost ‘food’ the plant. Here is a cute plush toy from the giant microbe company, so you can see what Giardia looks like https://www.giantmicrobes.com/us/products/giardia.html

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