The Dublin Urban Rivers Life Project (DURL) is a project lead by South Dublin County Council aims to improve the water quality of the rivers and streams within South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
The main rivers the project will be focusing on in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown area will be in the Carrickmines Stream catchment. These include the Carrickmines Stream, the River Shanganagh and the Loughlinstown Stream. These rivers were chosen as they are representative of other large and small urban catchments in South Dublin and other urban centres in Ireland.
The project, due to start at the beginning of March 2020, will be taking a number of approaches to address the problem of water pollution. One of the key areas is the area of domestic drainage misconnections. Domestic misconnections occur when the foul water drain for domestic dwellings is incorrectly connected to the stormwater drain. Stormwater drains are directly connected to the local water course, (river or stream) and so any foul water that enters the stormwater drain directly pollutes the local water course.
The project team will first try and identify homes that may have a domestic misconnection at their property and then work with homeowners to have these misconnections corrected.
The team will be attempting to engage a wide variety of stakeholders in the areas surrounding the Carrickmines Stream, the Shanganagh River and the Loughlinstown Stream.
The purpose will be to raise awareness of the work undertaken to improve water quality and explore ways the team can work with homeowners and members of the local community to make sure these misconnections are prevented or, if they exist, take steps to correct them.
The types of groups concerned include: community groups, residents associations, local recreational clubs, heritage groups, housing groups or any other interested groups that would have a keen interest in the DURL project.
The areas the project will be focusing on will be the following;
- Sandyford
- Stepaside
- Loughlinstown
- Cabinteely
- Carrickmines
- Leopardstown
- Shankill
- Kilgobbin
Some more information on the project can be found at www.dublinriverlife.ie
If you would like to register your interest to participate in this project, please contact DLR PPN Manager, Simone Sav at [email protected] or ring 01 7060109.