Stud farm sets out case against bioplant

COOLMORE yesterday launched a blistering attack on a proposed animal byproducts treatment plant, which would be located 3km from its Ballydoyle training facility, describing it as “the wrong use in the wrong location”.

Opening the stud giant’s case against the project, Donal O’Donnell SC said Castleblake in south Tipperary was “close to the last place on this earth” that an animal byproduct plant should be located.

Mr O’Donnell said the area proposed for the Green Organics Energy (GOE) plant was in a “tranquil and pristine rural environment”, close to the “greatest racing stables in the world” and that GOE’s plan was “the antithesis” of proper planning. He also said that there was a “disturbing inconsistency and instability” in GOE’s proposal.

Coolmore and Ballydoyle trainer Aidan O’Brien have led the campaign against the GOE plan, which would see animal by-products being used to produce bio-energy and biodiesel on a site historically used for animal rendering, halfway between Cashel and Clonmel.

GOE is a consortium made up of Dawn Meats, Avglade (which owns the site at Castleblake), Rosegreen, and bio-energy company Bioverda Ltd which is a division of NTR. South Tipperary County Council turned down the company’s planning application last year, prompting an appeal to An Bord Pleanála and the current hearing.

The proposal’s supporters yesterday urged the Government to “recognise the requirement for facilities such as that proposed for Castleblake” if Ireland is to meet its ambitious renewable energy targets.

With the European Union indicating Ireland will have to meet targets of 16% of renewable energy and cut greenhouse gases by 20%, GOE project manager Paul Barrett said such projects were essential to help address these targets.

The company argues that such a plant is necessary to deal with byproducts, currently exported, produced by the Irish meat industry and would also contribute electricity to the national grid and produce biodiesel.

Speaking on GOE’s behalf about the wastewater produced at the proposed bioenergy plant, engineer and director of Treatment Systems Ltd Seamus Crickley said that the treated water “does not pose any threat to the environment”.

It is not intended to discharge any water from the plant into the nearby river Moyle, said Mr Crickley, and his company were satisfied that the high level of treatment “makes this water safe either for storage or use as utility water”.

If there was any discharge, he said, “no environmental risk is posed”.

Evidence was also given by experts in thermal pressure hydrolysis, the process which would be used at the plant to treat the animal byproducts. It was described as a “closed and safe process” with combined heat and power generation, saves on fossil energies and is self-sufficient from an energy point of view.

The hearing continues today.