BY ADRIAN MULLAN

Some septic tanks in the West Tyrone area have not been emptied for so long that sewage from them is flowing through their owners' gardens, claims Omagh Cllr Paddy McGowan. He accused the new government-owned company that now runs water services, Northern Ireland Water, of passing the buck and of failing to adequately deal with the problem.

He said one family in Dromore had requested that their tank to be emptied as far back as March but were advised by Northern Ireland Water that the earliest that the service would be available to them was in June.

"This has got beyond a joke," Cllr McGowan said. "There is an epidemic of septic tanks not being emptied. I know of one household were all of the toilets are blocked and cannot be used because of the state of the septic tank."

He warned that some people were so desperate that they were thinking of getting farmers with slurry machinery to clear their tanks of the sludge.

Cllr McGowan claims that he was told by the chief executive of Northern Ireland Water that emergency cases would be done. "With septic discharge running through lawns, is that not enough of an emergency?"

"There seems to be a lot of buck-passing. Are all of the callouts that the NIW are dealing with emergencies?" He called for the company to institute procedures that would deal quicker with emergencies.

A spokesperson for Northern Ireland Water said the company was emptying 180 septic tanks per day, and said that the situation arose when, following the announcement of a £30 charge for the service (with water rates), NIW received 10,000 requests for emptying tanks.

"This demand has obviously created a large backlog. NIW have teams who are operating extended hours and over weekends to clear this backlog. NIW have contacted all customers who are waiting to have tanks emptied and have advised them that we hope to have the backlog cleared by mid-June."

The spokesperson added, "Northern Ireland Water wrote to nearly 60,000 customers explaining the discretionary free septic tank emptying service it operated was going to end. From April 2007, if a customer wished to have their tank emptied, a charge of £30 would apply.

"Any request received before April would be honoured, so the tank would be emptied free of charge."

The NIW spokesperson strongly advised against people using farmers with slurry tankers to empty septic tanks.

"If this leads to pollution they could be fined," the spokesperson added.