Stud farm at heart of campaign to keep incinerator out of Golden Vale

THE proposal to build an incinerator in Tipperary has seen one of the country's biggest businesses pitched against a local family backing the plant.

Coolmore Stud is to the fore in the campaign opposing the meat and bonemeal plant National By-Products, owned by local family the Ronans, wants to build.

Coolmore argues it contributes 44m to the local economy and employs 600. The incinerator will create 24 jobs.

The biggest names in the business have rallied together to oppose the incinerator. Support for the anti-incinerator campaign has come from the likes of Denis Brosnan, Senator Martin Mansergh and Alex Ferguson.

The South Tipperary anti-incinerator campaign (STAC) is receiving big financial backing from Coolmore Stud. Last week STAC opened an office in the Market Square in Clonmel.

The office is crammed with literature and data opposing the Rosegreen incinerator. A representative from Murray Consultants, the PR company used by Coolmore, is based there full-time.

But just over a year ago this type of incinerator was getting the thumbs up from all the relevant authorities.

The Department of Agriculture, the Food Safety Authority, and even the IFA admitted there was a need for an incinerator to dispose of this waste.

"An incinerator is an essential requirement if we are to have any hope of sustaining a food industry," Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh said in January 2001. "This is a horrendous situation and we can no longer export our problems abroad as in the past when other (EU) member states facilitated us. We have to grow up and face the problem now. We need a dose of reality in this country."

A few weeks before this statement Food Safety Authority of Ireland chief executive Dr Patrick Wall said: "At least one incinerator will be required to get rid of meat and bonemeal. The Government should not wait until it is overwhelmed by events. An incinerator should be built as soon as possible"

And the IFA's former president Tom Parlon said: "The obvious use for it [meat and bonemeal] is to incinerate it." The IFA now opposes the Rosegreen proposal.

The EU insisted a treatment plant for meat and bonemeal was necessary. Last May, EU Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner David Byrne said: "This State should have its own incinerator for disposing of stockpiles of banned bonemeal before they get into the wrong hands"

But STAC says National By-Products' poor environmental record makes it the wrong firm to run an incinerator. It was convicted in the district court of environmental breaches in 1999 and last year was fined 30,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for breaches including the pollution of the Moyle River.

Interestingly, the EPA only started closely monitoring rendering plants like National By-Products in 1996.

STAC spokesperson Maurice Moloney said: "We can't take any chances. We have the bloodstock, the dairy and the food producing industries all based here in the Golden Vale. I shudder to think what would happen if anything went wrong."

STAC has the support of 120 vets and 37 GPs locally. Fethard-based GP Molly Owens said: "We don't think the site is suitable and we would have serious worries about the health of people in the region if it's built."

The doctors believe the plant may cause cancers, skin rashes, and respiratory problems among local people.

"This is about preventing some major health problems down the line. We don't want to reach a stage in a few years where it will be too late to do anything," Dr Owens said.