Cork Harbour residents fear cheese waste
A public meeting was held in East Ferry last night where residents were encouraged to lodge objections with Cork County Council’s planning department before the deadline of January 20.
Debby Hayes, of the Saleens and District Residents Association and Protect East Ferry Waters, said locals were not aware of the plans to dump waste into the harbour until one resident spotted the planning permission notice.
The planning application was lodged in late November but she says Dairygold only invited people to public meetings in the nearby town of Midleton in the days leading up to Christmas. This was “too late”, she said.
“It is the lack of consultation around where they are locating the outfall pipe that we find worrying. This is an area of pristine beauty, with a special area of conservation just north of the site. East Ferry could be seriously jeopardised by their proposals,” she said.
Under the plans, the waste will undergo treatment at a new wastewater treatment plant at Mogeely and will contain fats, oil and grease known as “FOG” in the industry and will be categorised as “grey water”.
The company’s environmental impact study says the wastewater will be safely carried from out to sea on outgoing tides and that all discharges will be in line with EPA standards.
However, Ms Hayes said residents fear that “drains and sewers will be compromised by the oils and fats” as all of the waste will not flow out to the Atlantic.
Last month, marine expert Tom Doyle of NUI Galway, a native of East Cork, warned “any effluent with organic matter” could threaten the area’s sea bass population as East Ferry “has some of the highest residence times in Cork Harbour” for effluent.
It is understood that 2,806 litres of waste will be pumped per minute and potentially up to 3m litres per day.
Dairygold Co-op is seeking to build a new cheese processing plant in Mogeely, about 15km inland. Waste from the plant will be pumped into the East Ferry channel, 8km from the open sea, having travelled from Mogeely via a 14km pipe running through the townland of Rathcoursey.
The new plant is part of an expansion by Dairygold in its production of Jarlesberg cheese with Tine, Norway’s largest farmer-owned dairy co-op.
Yesterday, Dairygold said the plant “will have a negligible and imperceptible impact on water quality at Rathcoursey”.
“The reason why the treated process water cannot be released into the Kiltha river, as is currently the case, is because the river does not have the assimilative capacity to accept the larger volume of discharged process water,” said a spokesman.
“Dairygold had quite extensive engagement with community stakeholders during October, November and December and that’s continuing.”
