Water near illegal dump ‘perfect’, says developer

THE backers of a multi-million euro housing and commercial development have dismissed claims that the drinking water source for its thousands of residents and occupants will be affected by the presence of an illegal dump nearby.

Development company Cookehill Ltd have planning permission for more than 600 homes in Blessington, Co Wicklow, close to a site identified two years ago as being used for illegal dumping.

An Taisce, the national trust, claims the tens of thousands of tonnes of waste still lying untreated on the site pose a threat to the health of unwitting housebuyers who are set to snap up the homes when the development goes on sale in the coming months.

The organisation says a hotel, retail units, business park and leisure facilities, which also form part of the massive Cookehill plans, will also have to source their drinking water from the same potentially contaminated area.

But property consultant Bill Mulrooney, a member of the Cookehill consortium, insisted yesterday there was no cause for concern. “We have had our water supply tested and it is perfect. We are fully happy with it,” he said.

Wicklow County Council granted permission for the Cookehill developments while inspections of the dump site were ongoing and before its owners, Roadstone, took any decision about how to deal with the long-term implications of the waste.

Roadstone has always insisted it knew nothing about the illegal dumping on its land and has yet to decide whether it is best to remove all the waste, apply for planning permission to turn the site into a legal landfill facility, or seal the whole lot off with barriers to protect against environmental damage.

Labour deputy leader and Wicklow TD Liz McManus said, however, all three options had implications for water quality in the area and she called for a moratorium on development until all the dump sites identified in Blessington were thoroughly examined by independent experts.

She said Wicklow County Council’s inspections of the sites were compromised by the fact that some of the local authority’s own waste had ended up illegally dumped there.

But An Taisce president and Blessington resident Frank Corcoran claimed Wicklow County Council was no longer investigating the site at all. He said council inspectors left in February and Roadstone was conducting its own investigations, a situation he described as nonsensical given that the council and Roadstone differed on the number of sites and volume of waste at issue.

“The continued existence of the illegal dumps on Roadstone’s land represents a continuous threat to the water supply to all the new developments in Blessington,” he said.

“Wicklow County Council should immediately re-enter the lands and finish their investigations. It’s total nonsense for Roadstone to be investigating themselves.”

Separate council and garda investigations have been carried out at dozens of suspected illegal dumps throughout Co Wicklow since the problem first emerged in 2001.

It is understood the county council recently completed its inquiries and that a number of garda files have been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. No one was made available by the council to comment yesterday.