Dublin People - Hearing highlights incinerator concerns

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Hearing highlights incinerator concerns

Thursday, 24 April 2008

Objectors to the Poolbeg incinerator proposal claimed at an oral hearing into the granting of a waste licence last week that no study has ever been carried out to establish if some industries in the area could be responsible for a high incidence of cancer among young people in Ringsend.
The oral hearing is being held by the EPA to consider objections about its proposal to license Dublin City Council to operate a waste incinerator at Poolbeg.
Last November, the EPA announced its intention to grant a licence for the controversial incinerator, which would process up to 600,000 tonnes of waste per annum.
However, Ringsend residents claim the plant will cause traffic chaos in an already congested, built-up area by adding 30,000 extra truck movements per annum.
Resident John Hawkins, who is also a member of St Patrick's Rowing Club in Ringsend, told the oral hearing the area has been seen as a "soft touch" by the council over the years.
He said a large number of facilities operating there appeared to be the source of various types of pollution, including a sewage treatment plant.
Mr Hawkins claimed six young men from a local rowing club had already died from cancer.
Damien Cassidy of the Ringsend, Irishtown and Sandymount Environmental Group said the residents’ opposition to the incinerator was supported by the European Parliament's petitions committee.
A letter from the committee that has been seen by Southside People expressed reservations about the suitability of the Poolbeg site and urged the EPA, An Bord Pleanála, Dublin City Council and the Department of Environment to give “more serious consideration” to the project.
The letter stated: “It remains to be confirmed that an incinerator project of this magnitude would be in conformity with EU Directives on Waste Incineration and on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control.
“There is also some doubt as to whether all the provisions of the EIA Directives have been complied with given the timing of the original impact assessment in 1999, its original scope and the change in the circumstances since then, in particular as regards transport and access to the site area.”
In addition the letter noted that incineration, as a form of waste disposal, is being discarded completely by many of Europe’s regions “or at least relegated to the last possible waste disposal option”.
The assistant Dublin City manager, Matt Twomey, also said that up 80,000 tonnes of sewage sludge could be burned annually in the incinerator, even though sewage processing at the site is not at present sanctioned by An Bord Pleanála.
He said the fact that the board did not give the go ahead for the incineration of sludge did not preclude the EPA from including this activity in its waste licence for the facility.

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