Scrapping of ESB air monitors criticised
The network of air monitors have been in operation for the past 25 years and are sited in west Limerick near Foynes and Askeaton as well as in parts of Clare and Kerry.
The monitors check the impact of emissions many miles from the plants but an ESB spokesman said yesterday that they were no longer necessary.
The EPA has told the ESB it can end air quality monitoring in the specified areas but it wants the company to reduce emissions from both plants under a new licensing arrangement.
Green Party spokeswoman on the environment, Councillor Mary White, said: “We have to adopt the precautionary principle and I would favour reactivating monitoring in order to protect public health as well as the environment.”
According to the ESB, no discernible impact on the environment has ever been found over the past 25 years. Spokesman Michael Kelly said: “The results to date and the future emissions profiles for Moneypoint and Tarbert power stations indicate it is no longer necessary.”
The ESB spokesman said monitoring showed that local air quality remained typical of that for unpolluted rural regions and stricter controls demanded by the EPA would be put in place.
“State-of-the-art continuous emissions monitoring equipment has been installed at the chimneys of each station, ensuring that the EPA has full information at all times in relation to emissions.”
The EPA said last night that it regarded monitoring at source as a “more effective and more accurate measure of emissions and air quality”.
The ESB has just got planning permission for a €200 million environmental clean-up of Moneypoint, the country’s biggest power station.
The clean-up is necessary if the station is to comply with the EPA licence and operate beyond 2008. It will actually increase the emission of greenhouse bases but will reduce other environmental pollutants by 90%, according to the ESB.
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