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I hope you’ve finished eating because I have to tell you something unpleasant.
Many years ago now I went to China. It was an extraordinary country and an unforgettable trip.
Including, as it transpired, my one and only visit to a public toilet there.
It was high on a mountain road, on the way to Woolong in the Sichuan province.
Before it was devastated by an earthquake in 2008, Woolong was essentially the home of the world’s pandas — it even included a panda hospital. (It has, I understand, considerably recovered from the effects of the earthquake).
It was a place we, and especially Frieda, had always wanted to go. But getting there involved a hazardous and long journey in a pretty rickety bus.
After a couple of hours, our bus stopped at the only public toilet on the route.
It turned out that this (men’s) toilet was a series of holes in the ground, with channels that allowed the waste to gather in a much larger central hole.
No hose had been there that morning. So, all we saw was a small mountain of human waste, the product of a couple of hundred men.
And as long as I live, I will never forget the stomach-churning horror of the smell.
I can still remember backing out of there almost trembling because it was one of the most disgusting places I have ever encountered.
It was the effect of the untreated waste of perhaps 200 men.
Barbaric, uncivilised, I hear you say. The developing world.
Do you think? Then read this.
“A thick grey and brown coloured scum can regularly be seen floating in on the coming tide from the location of the primary discharge point, which is located about 50 meters [sic] downstream of the pier.
“Large slicks of this scum float up and over the weir north of the pier and into the lagoon adjacent to the children’s playground, public tennis courts, community park, community hall, dedicated camper van park, the public road, a public car park, a public walk route and right up to within a few meters [sic] of private residences at the east end of the village.
“Added to this, grey, filthy, foul-smelling water, and often even faeces and toilet paper, can be seen pouring out of the stormwater overflow directly into the lagoon, even in dry weather.
“In summer the stench from the treatment plant itself is frequently overpowering, preventing camper van owners from parking in the park.”
That’s not China, nor anywhere in the developing world. It’s one of the most beautiful and beloved places in the world — a place chosen recently by National Geographic as one of the top 25 places in the world to be.
What you read in the previous two paragraphs is happening in West Cork, and more specifically in and around Ballydehob and Roaringwater Bay.
I’m quoting material about West Cork for two reasons. One, it’s one of the places I love most in the world.
And two, the paragraphs I’m quoting are from a really well-researched report, written by a man called Cormac Levis, and entitled simply ‘The Ballydehob Pollution report’.
It’s devastating. It’s a complex and technical report, heavy going at times, that involved hundreds of hours of work. But the human impact shines through.
(I should perhaps tell you that it was brought to my attention by my sister Finola who lives in Ballydehob. She has provided a link to the full report on her own blog ‘Roaringwater Journal’, which is easily findable online.)
The pollution is essentially caused by one thing — untreated human waste being allowed to flow into the rivers and seas.
What should be a treatment plant is effectively nothing more than an overflowing septic tank.
It simply can’t cope with what’s going into it and hasn’t been able to for years.
And that’s happening because of the complete failure of our state to invest in proper (and essential) water treatment.
I’m quoting West Cork as an example. But here’s another interesting thing about that otherwise beautiful part of the world: The population of West Cork in its entirety is around 54,000 people.
I described earlier the effect on me of the gathered and untreated human waste of 200 people.
Could you just imagine what would happen if we allowed the waste of 54,000 people to be handled that way?
Well, in October last year this newspaper reported that raw sewage from the equivalent of 54,000 people in 26 cities and towns around Ireland was being discharged into the environment every day.
Every day — 365 days a year.
Billions are needed. After our most recent budget the government trumpeted a new capital investment of one billion over the next five years.
I can’t find anywhere a breakdown of how much of that, if any, will be used to get rid of the human effluent from our water.
We’re one of the richest countries in the world. We now have billions of euro in reserves, and there is no law or protocol that prevents us from making the capital investment that would future-proof our water and help to future-proof our environment.
But we’d rather see human excrement on our beaches than do the work that needs doing.
Maybe we’re just afraid to invest in Irish Water, or Uisce Éireann to give it is new name.
It’s arguable that the creation of Irish Water in the first place, and the determination to charge for excess water use, changed Irish politics, and not for the better, because the protests beat the rational arguments.
Rather than do it right, we ended up setting up a national body that is entirely incapable of generating any meaningful revenue of its own, and instead depends exclusively on the generosity of the minister for finance and the vagaries of politics.
Only a couple of weeks ago George Lee listed them all on RTÉ and went on to report that Uisce Éireann has no plan to start working on a quarter of them until 2030.
All our recent governments have essentially shirked this issue. The next government, however it’s made up, cannot be allowed to.
It’s long past time we grew up. We need to reopen this entire debate about how we manage our water before it’s too late.
Water should be metered. Excess use should be paid for. Polluters should be penalised.
Above all our water infrastructure must be modernised. We simply cannot continue to allow filthy water, full of our own excrement, into our rivers and seas.
If we fail to do it, our next generation will demand to know how we let this happen. They’re the ones we’re really letting down.