Residents ‘must close windows to keep out stench from toxic dump’
Kerry County Council is under pressure to get the nuisance removed and it should be gone by May, but county manager Martin Nolan warned councillors against scaremongering.
According to Cllr Billy Leen, up to 500 tonnes of pharmaceutical waste is in an open pit at Tullig, two miles from Castleisland, and should be removed immediately. He said up to 150 families were living nearby.
However, Mr Nolan insisted that no decision on removing the material would be taken until tests and analysis had been completed. Samples have been sent to the EPA.
He said it would then be disposed of in accordance with best practice.
Mr Leen said that, in 2000, a contractor in the Castleisland area obtained a licence to bring sludge from a Cork company to a farmyard, where it could be made into compost.
Conditions of the licence were that the waste should be properly treated in an enclosed area.
However, Mr Leen claimed, the contractor then went outside the licensed area and dug an open pit into which up to 500 tonnes of the waste had since been dumped.
“This has been used as an unlicensed dump for two years. There’s now a covering of scum on top of the pit and it’s the biggest boil in Munster, a terrible eyesore,” Mr Leen remarked.
He said the council had been “moping around” there and he got an emergency motion passed at this week’s meeting that the material be removed immediately and treated in an approved manner.
He also said any attempts to take the material to the council landfill, at Muingnaminnane, near Tralee, would be strongly resisted.
“That place [landfill] is already the subject of a High Court case for nuisance and there’s no way the council can be allowed add to the nuisance,” he said.
“If they try to take it to the landfill, I’ll have half the parish out to stop them. This stuff is a health hazard. The smell off it is terrible. It’s like ammonia.”
