Cancer fear cloud hangs over harbour

High cancer rates are causing concern in Cobh, writes Sean O’Riordan

THE people of Cobh have every right to be worried about high cancer levels. Records show that cancer cases in the Cork Harbour town are 37% higher than the national average.

To exacerbate their worries, the remains of a toxic dump are at their doorstep. It has not, so far, been conclusively proven the high cancer rate is as a result of the toxic waste dump at Haulbowline, adjacent to Cobh.

However, according to Councillor John Mulvihill, who lost his wife to cancer, nobody can prove it isn’t.

The revelation the Office of Public Works (OPW) still hasn’t set up a working committee to examine how best to deal with the site has incensed him. The state body was asked to do so early last July.

Labour councillor Mulvihill, who had a public row over the dump with John Gormley on a visit to Cobh last year, took yet another swipe at the Minister for the Environment yesterday.

“The people of the lower harbour have been totally neglected by this Government and the Green Party. The Greens are the guardians of the environment, my ass,” Mr Mulvihill said.

Two years ago, public representatives in Cobh called for a baseline health study of the lower harbour. It hasn’t materialised.

The National Cancer Registry reported there were 585 cases of cancer confirmed in the Cobh urban area between 1994 and 2007.

Based on population, this represented 37% above the national average.

Allied to yesterday’s news that the promised working committee still hasn’t been set up (seven months after Mr Gormley ordered it), this will fuel health fears even more in the area.

Tony Lowes, a director of the Friends of the Irish Environment, said the site contains five of the metals most likely to damage your health – lead, zinc, cadmium, chromium and copper.

Hydrocarbons and other oil and metal byproducts were also found at the dump.

Mr Lowes claimed in May 2008, scientists retained by the Department of the Environment felt obliged to make an interim report that found levels of contamination at the dump “necessitating emergency treatment immediately”. It wasn’t until the Irish Examiner broke the story the following month that the public became aware of the issue.

Documents seen by this newspaper showed, in the previous April, the Department of the Environment told a sub-contracting firm working on the site to cap lagoons containing hazardous waste rather than remove the deadly material.

The sub-contractors, Louis J O’Regan Ltd, said they had already removed 100,000 tonnes of hazardous waste from the 27-acre site and shipped it, at a cost of €50 million, for disposal to Germany.

The German company involved in processing the waste wrote to the contractors expressing concernabout the levels of highly carcinogenic chromium 6 contained in thematerial.

The estimated cost of the clean up is reportedly €300m.

A spokeswoman for the OPW yesterday said it was in the process of establishing a working group “to develop a structured and coherent approach to the further management and development of the site”.

She said draft terms of reference have been produced and are currently being circulated and that “the working group will be convened upon receipt of feedback”.

When it is finally established, the working group is expected to have representatives from the Department of the Environment and Department of Defence, Cork County Council, the IDA and other agencies.

The OPW spokeswoman said, in the meantime, Cork County Council will continue to discharge site management responsibilities on an agency basis.

Cork County Council’s role in the site, is likely to lead to significant debate next week.

Mr Mulvihill said he had put forward a motion to have the issue discussed when the council meets in County Hall next Monday.