Doctors issue red alert over water pollution from dumps

THE Irish Doctors Environmental Association (IDEA) has long been concerned regarding the high risk of drinking water contamination from poorly designed, poorly sited and improperly used ‘solid’ waste landfill facilities.

We are especially concerned about the risk associated with the apparently numerous totally unsupervised illegal dumps.

We have written to both the Department of Health and Children (Dec ’01) and the Eastern Region Health Authority (twice in May ‘02) expressing our concerns and requesting information about monitoring of water supplies near these dumps. To date we have not even had the courtesy of a reply.

International experience suggests that this could be a serious public health risk and requires at the very least urgent ongoing monitoring of water supplies, and the public, particularly those living in the vicinity, are entitled to have access to the results. Dr Philip Michael,

PRO,

Irish Doctors Environmental Association,

Millbrook Medical Centre,

Bandon,

Co Cork.