Fears toxic dump has contaminated entire island

THE environmental lobby group that complained to the European Commission about the toxic dump in Cork Harbour fears the Government is ignoring vast areas of contamination in its long-awaited €40 million clean-up of the site.

Friends of the Irish Environment (FOIE) say several consultants’ reports on the Haulbowline site show thatcontamination is widespread across the 20 hectares of the island, not just at the nine acres described as the East Tip, which is to be made safe in the next two and a half years.

At a meeting attended by representatives from the commission and from the Department of the Environment before Christmas, FOIE expressed their concerns but were told by department officials that other areas were not being targeted, as the hazardous waste was deposited prior to the introduction into law of a 1975 Waste Directive.

FOIE has challenged this assertion, as they believe the dumping continued in the area long after 1975.

“Tests from the old steelwork site show levels of contamination that are actually higher for some dangerous substances than found on the East Tip,” said FOIE director Tony Lowes. “This should not be about a waste directive but about the environment and public health.”

FOIE has written to the European Commission asking them to press the Government to address the wider contamination at the old steel site, East Camber and at the South Tip.

However, minister for the marine Simon Coveney has said that while he does not disagree with FOIE’s concerns, he does not want to “compromise or delay the current application for a landfill licence by submitting a whole series of applications which could set back the existing application for a landfill licence at the East Tip by a year or two”.

“In a time of huge financial pressure, we have sanction from Government to clean up the most contaminated part of the island, including part of the steelworks,” he said. “This is significant progress. We must move forward with that. The cleaning up of the entire island is not part of the current application.

“Also, it is not what the commission asked but that does not mean that we won’t look at it in the future,” said Mr Coveney.

A 2002 report for the then minister of the marine by O’Callaghan Moran and Associates noted “documentary evidence confirming or strongly suggesting disposal at the South and East Tips of furnace dust, waste oils, organic solvents and [toxic chemical] PCBS”.

It added: “While the most expensive and widespread remedial requirement is likely to be on the East Tip, in other areas on the steelworks site there are several areas likely to require remediation.

These are identified as “areas on and around the East Camber of South Tip, including the existing electricity transformer station and former oil storage area are likely to contain hot spots”.

In the December submission to the European Commission, Mr Lowes said: “Also because of the infill nature of the land, leached contaminated hazardous materials travel freely across the island and must be subject to assessment and subsequent terms of any license considered for the hazardous waste on Haulbowline Island.”