Achnacroish – a shared system
Private domestic water supplies, while complicated, are comparatively simple. Public spaces such as Lismore Public Hall and Lismore Gaelic Heritage Centre are another management level. Keeping water pure and running so they can operate safely is a huge job for the volunteers who run these places. True heroes. But it is the supply to the school and the now widely developed Achnacroish that has been poorly understood historically and so difficult to manage.
As far as water supplies were concerned, history and precedent were important as they predate any need for legal back-up; until relatively recently, much that was transacted on Lismore was understood verbally. A hopeless system these days when there is a high percentage of property owners and a low number of lawyers versed in what little law there is. When you buy property on Lismore, water may or may not be mentioned as vital to understand. You will know it has been tested but where it comes from, what route those pipes take, you are unlikely to learn this. Yet, you will soon discover you need to know.
Achnacroish has a unique and abundant water supply arising at Newfield. It is now the largest shared system and was set up during the Second World War when the army were camped at Newfield. Later, when the first council houses were built in 1950, they were added, as was Lismore Primary School in the 1960s. Such was the volume of the supply that, when the second phase of council houses was built at Lorn View in 1975, an extra tank was added, and all went well.
With council housing being the main consumers, Argyll and Bute Council had to ensure their tenants had potable water so maintained the system, employing Donnie MacCormick to clean out the added tank. Now, as all but one of the houses are privately owned and some have private tenants, and two are let by the West Highland Housing Association, there is understandable confusion about where the responsibility lies.
However, there are now regular meetings of all those involved to try and ensure the supply remains viable and safe.
Fortunately, the school now has its own supply. However, in response to the Scottish Executive’s (subsequently Scottish Government’s) demand in 2007 that all schools in Scotland have a good and safe water supply, Scottish Water installed an underwater pipe from Port Appin to Point. It never went further than the shore near Achuaran House, as rocky land, landowners’ consent and the monumental cost of getting it to Achnacroish at the other end of the island stymied this ill- conceived plan. It was not popular anyway, as islanders felt that the exorbitant cost of procuring mainland water, which would serve only the school, could have been much better spent providing a state-of-the-art water treatment plant for all at Achnacroish.
The need for safe water for the island’s children was finally met by two boreholes and a filtration plant installed and managed by Scottish Water, meaning water problems, for the school, ceased eventually. And these problems had been terrible, as keeping the water safe had been a continuing job for both the head teacher and Argyll and Bute Property Services. More than once, when the school was closed for one day and without water for a week, Argyll and Bute had to supply bottled water. The head teacher at the time, Freda MacGregor, said that without their constant attention and efforts the school would have been closed a great deal more. And of course, her attention was diverted from teaching as the water worry continued.
Of the new system, Head Teacher Catherine Davies wrote: ‘When we moved into the School House in July 2010, Scottish Water had installed the bore holes and associated building but they were not in use. It was some time before they were connected as I have memories of the frozen water pipe which crossed the sports field from the old supply and also the UV filter system. It may have been nearly a year before it was connected and then there were many problems before the telemetry worked properly.’
It did, though, employ one local who checked it regularly.
Before the boreholes were created at great expense, Scottish Water had offered to manage the Newfield supply for the school and the wider Achnacroish area, but some residents objected to the idea that they would then have to pay water rates and, well, that is not something you do on Lismore!
I for one would gladly pay water rates if it meant never again thinking again about failing limed up pumps and pipes which have probably cost far more in the long run. And the best thing would be that, even when the supply failed, I would not be the CEO of my own water company and have to solve it.
It is water and its management that has driven many a person to have to leave the island when infirmity makes the job too hard. Water runs Lismore. Without it our lives are impossible and our houses worthless.
