Council denies landfill is a threat to local ecology

THE opening day of a Bord Pleanála hearing in Dungarvan yesterday into Waterford County Council’s proposal to develop a landfill outside the town, was told that in an ideal world waste would be buried five miles underground.

Senior counsel for the local authority, Dermot Flanagan said, while the 20-hectare landfill at an overall 97-hectare site at Garrynagree just off the N25 would take up to 120,000 tonnes of residual waste annually from Waterford city and county, none of it would be hazardous.

Mr Flanagan said the design objectives are to prevent pollution in the development of the landfill.

The proposal is being opposed by the local Lickey Concern Group, and the hearing is being conducted in Irish and English after Old Parish resident Tomas O'Mathúna mounted a High Court challenge claiming this was his constitutional right.

The objectors claim the development will have a devastating environmental and ecological impact on the area, that it will create a health risk, will significantly increase traffic levels, and will pose a serious threat to fresh water pearl mussels in the nearby Lickey river.

However, Mr Flanagan said there were a lot of emotive words used about a dump, but a contained engineered landfill was neither a dump nor a superdump.

Mr Flanagan said, in a perfect world there would be no landfills, and waste would be buried five miles underground. However, he said, we aren't living in that kind of world and Waterford County Council is embracing EU directives for in its proposal to develop the landfill.

He said there are stringent requirements of those directives and the local authority must ensure that the development does not impose a serious environmental risk. "But it is unlikely that any site will meet every criteria," he said.

Referring to the suggestions of a threat to the fresh water pearl mussels in the nearby Lickey river, he said the protection of the river had at all times been a consideration for the county council. There would be regular monitoring of the mussel population during the construction and there would be ecological enhancement along the bank of the river.

Solicitor Joe Noonan representing the Lickey Concern Group voiced his concern that the county council might be planning to foist additional information onto the oral hearing about which his clients had no prior notice or knowledge.

He said this would not be allowed in a court of law and should not be tolerated at the oral hearing.

Bord Pleanála inspector Michael Walsh said it would be reasonable to allow the council to elaborate on its case for the landfill and he would have to allow them to make that case. However, if the local authority were to introduce a large body of new information that would be something he would have to consider.

Mr Flanagan responded that he was present to explain the process and the proposal.

Waterford County Council senior executive engineer James O'Mahony told the hearing that the landfill was in accordance with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.