Legal threat to OPW’s flood works in Bandon

The Office of Public Works (OPW) has been threatened with legal action unless it halts in-river work on a controversial €16m flood defence project.

Environmentalists have also flagged their concerns about the Bandon flood relief works in Cork with the European Commission after an intensification of works in the channel of the Bandon river in recent days.

The works, which has involved the driving of large earth-moving diggers and trucks along the river bed, are taking place despite the scheme’s own planning documents stating such in-stream works should be restricted to between May and September to minimise the impact on salmon.

The documents say such work is “generally not permitted” in salmonid spawning areas between October and March because it’s a sensitive time for spawning and migrating salmon and trout.

Solicitors for Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) wrote to the OPW yesterday threatening legal action unless this work stops.

FIE director Tony Lowes said they have received regular complaints about the environmental damage caused by the scheme.

“But this blatant disregard for their own environmental commitments is unprecedented and inexcusable,” he said.

“The works highlight the dangers to the environment of the OPW’s highly interventionist approach to urban ‘flood alleviation’ which emphasises hard landscape measures over catchment management and soft measures.

The overbearing and unnecessary scale of their engineering interventions is highlighted by the OPW’s creation of what is said to be the largest fish pass in Europe, dubbed locally the ‘whale pass’ because of its absurd scale, when simply removing the weir in question would have provided for fish migration.

Environmentalists like Dr William O’Connor, a chartered biologist and a chartered environmentalist with Ecofact Environmental Consultants Ltd, have been monitoring the massive dredging, rock armouring, and river wall scheme since work started on a 3km stretch of the river in May 2017.

Dr O’Connor said instead of in-stream works winding down before October 1, they have actually intensified.

“The movement on the river bed of this kind of heavy machinery will kill lamprey and compact the sediments in which salmon and lamprey spawn. It is also stirring up huge amounts of sediment which will affect water quality,” he said.

He described the entire project as “over-designed and over-engineered” and said it will turn a “once pristine river into a heavily modified waterbody”.

“The rock armour approach is not appropriate in terms of managing riverways. It has permanently altered and in some places destroyed the natural hydromorphology of the area,” he said.

He has flagged his concerns with the European Commission’s environment directorate.

In a statement, Inland Fisheries Ireland said it is “gravely concerned” about the continued works.

The OPW did not respond yesterday to queries.