Wasting €4,000 on pollution fine

South-East Correspondent Neans McSweeney reports on the costly business of waste management.

WATERFORD County Council says it’s regrettable that it ended up in the courts in the past few days with a €4,000 fine for failing to abide by the terms of its waste license as set down by the environmental watchdog, the Environmental Protection Agency.

It admitted failing to put in place the infrastructure needed to deal with gases from the site, thus causing a pollution threat. But as admitted in court and acknowledged by Mr Justice Michael O’Shea, the problem is simply down to a lack of finance for such works for authorities such as Waterford County Council.

Speaking after the case, Waterford County Council’s senior engineer in environment, Paul Daly, said they are doing everything in their power now to abide by the terms and conditions set out by the EPA.

“No regulatory authority wants to find itself in court. We are disappointed we ended up there and being prosecuted. We were trapped and could not do anything about the offence.

“We had not reached the required level of work, mainly for financial reasons. We simply did not have the money at the time because of the delay in the Garrynagree landfill. We simply ran out of cash,” he said.

The council went to the Department of the Environment, cap in hand, looking for central funding. And it now hoped that this money might soon be forthcoming. The court heard last week that the county council has already spent €2 million on the site and will be spending a further €4m to get the site in Tramore up to standard.

“When the EPA inspected the site, we were not where we should have been work-wise. We were guilty of the offence as charged. We are now going ahead with the work and will have the major works – the gas collection and final capping work — done within the next six to eight months. The site should be fully completed in 12 months,” Mr Daly added.

Ten years ago, Waterford began looking for an alternative landfill to Tramore. Today, it is no further down the road. Waste from the county is now being transferred to Carlow.

It’s costing a fortune and householders in the city and county are already bearing the brunt. In county Waterford, a controversial €150 flat fee just for having a refuse service has been introduced. In the city, the fee is €120. In the Dungarvan Town Council area, the fee is €130.

Waste from Waterford – 35,000 tonnes from the county and a further 85,000 tonnes per annum from the city — is now being brought from Waterford to Carlow by the county council at an estimated cost of around €700,000 per annum.

Waterford’s problems are typically legacy ones. And while it struggles to find a place for its waste, its record in reusing, reducing and recycling is second to none.

In the 1990s the council lead the way with the introduction of a “pay-per-use” (tag) system and was the first Local Authority in Ireland to provide a Civic Amenity/Recycling Centre, located in Lismore. The County currently has three such sites.

The council can boast 17 Green Schools in the county, which is the best record for any county in the South East Region.

Currently, Waterford county is recycling over a third of its waste and, with composting, is diverting more than half of its waste away from landfill.

As a consequence, the council is five years ahead of national targets.