Tankers could be parked 200m from college

TANKERS with “high risk” substances will be parked 200 metres from the Maritime Naval College if Ireland’s first toxic waste incinerator gets the go ahead, it emerged yesterday.

The college will have 770 students and staff and is across the road from the entrance gate of the proposed 93 million toxic waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy, Co Cork.

Indaver Ireland, the company proposing to build the incinerator, confirmed yesterday that lorries with dangerous substances would park at the complex's gate to have their loads tested.

The company's site services manager and project manager Conor Jones told the 10th day of the Environmental Protection Agency's oral hearing on the proposal that these lorries would park at the entrance for sampling for an hour or two until cleared to go.

But Cork Environmental Alliance spokesman Nick Loughnan said this was particularly worrying because the company's own HAZID report, states that one cause of an accident could be a major explosion.

"The fact that you would put tankers there for a minute shows me the grasp you have of how dangerous it is," Mr Loughnan said to Mr Jones.

The oral hearing chairman, Dr Jonathan Derham, asked: "But if a tanker with material not considered appropriate arrives, is there an appropriate place to park is there another place for high risk material to park."

Mr Jones said it would be possible to move the truck and park it in another controlled area behind the building overnight.

But the chairman then asked Mr Jones: "If you had a tanker load of material that was deemed particularly dangerous, do you propose to park it in the unloading area where there are others is it the safest place for quarantine?"

Mr Jones said that they would also have an isolated quarantine area for these trucks in their waste transfer station.