Report backs underwater ESB cables
The report says the underwater crossing could be installed for just three times the price of pylons. The gap is narrowed even further when the cost to the ESB of land acquisition and compensation to landowners, should it choose the overland route, is taken into account.
Anti-pylon activists have hailed the report, by Seattle-based consultants RW Beck, as a vindication of their 10-year battle to prevent the ESB erecting 84 pylons over 26km of the lower harbour area.
“The bottom line is the Beck report has proven that all the technical obstacles the ESB put in our way over the years were unfounded. There were personalities in the ESB who never wanted to even look at the underwater option. This report ratifies our stance,” said Pat Gill, spokesman for the Cork Anti-Pylon Representative Association (CARA).
The report concluded the underwater option is technically and environmentally feasible, despite claims to the contrary over the years by the ESB .
It dismissed the idea an underwater crossing would impose considerable restrictions on the movement of ships in Cork Harbour. It also went against claims that underwater cabling would disrupt fishing and port dredging.
Instead it said: “Considering the short duration of construction activities within the actual shipping channel, the Port of Cork indicated they did not foresee this as a significant impact to harbour operations.”
It sets the capital cost of the pylon option at €7.2m, compared to €21.9m for the cheapest submarine option, contrary to ESB claims that the underwater crossing would cost 7.5 times the overland route.
However, CARA said the cost difference was negligible when the cost of land acquisition to erect pylons was taken into account. “Site potential alone would add €20m to the overland option,” Mr Gill said.
CARA said the underwater solution, were the ESB to go with it, would create a flexible infrastructure for growing future power demand. It said the overland route would mean ongoing clashes with CARA, landowner dissent and a reputation for the ESB as company with a reputation for railroading local communities.
It said the Beck report provided a real solution for compromise between both parties, that the climate within the ESB was now more accommodating to CARA’s demands and it called on Communications and marine Minister Dermot Ahern, as the ESB’s chief shareholder, to back the submarine option.
The ESB said it preferred not to comment on the report other than to say: “Like CARA, we are optimistic a resolution can be arrived at through the joint review body.”
The ESB has claimed massive power cuts will be inevitable if power supplies cannot be boosted.
