'€500k waste' on treatment centre that doesn't work
ANGER: That's why filth is being moved across the city in tankers
POTENTIALLY toxic waste is being transported for dumping in a sewer near the Phoenix Park because the €500,000 plant built to treat it "doesn't work", say councillors.
It has emerged that a treatment facility that was meant to deal with the waste at source in Balleally landfill is not fit for the job and is lying idle.
The Herald reported yesterday that the untreated leachate -- described by a councillor as "the chemical equivalent of nuclear waste" -- is being driven five times a day from Balleally in north Dublin to a sewer at the Phoenix Park train station.
SPILLAGE
A meeting of Fingal County Council has now heard the plant that opened in 2005 was never able to treat the waste to the standards set out in a licence given by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Cllr Kieran Dennison tabled a motion calling for an explanation. "The question arises -- how can a plant like this be built, that doesn't do what it's supposed to do?" he said.
"If there was a spillage, how could it be cleared up because this stuff has everything in it. It's the chemical equivalent of nuclear waste."
PJ Howell, the council's environment director, explained the plant had not been able to meet the Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) limit in the waste licence.
"We have applied to the EPA for a variation to the licence to increase this limit similar to other landfills and which would allow us to discharge directly to the (Rogerstown) estuary," he said.
He stressed that the disposal of the leachate posed no threat to the public as it was being carried out under the supervision of inspectors.
When the plant was not able to meet the COD limits, the council investigated installing additional treatment works.
"Following analysis of the options, we chose to tanker the effluent on the basis of cost and reliability," he said.
The waste enters a closed sewage system, he said.
"We appear to have built a waste treatment plant that is not fit for purpose", said Mayor Ciaran Byrne (Lab).
aphelan@herald.ie
- Andrew Phelan
