News from down the country

national | environment | news report Sunday November 09, 2008 18:26 by Contaminated Crow

Waste, incineration, a yelemast, an airport and more waste

Paddy Lawlor, chairperson of the local residents’ association, said 120 residents of Kentstown, Co. Meath protested at the Greenstar landfill at Knockharley, Kentstown at the landfill’s open day on Saturday November 1st to show Greenstar they were ‘utterly dissatisfied with the way the existing dump is run’. Anti-dump protester Fergal O’Byrne said Greenstar security staff locked the gates to the landfill to keep protesters out, a claim Greenstar deny: Fergal said ‘We have seen the bully-boy tactics this morning as we tried to gain access to the site’. Greenstar is applying to increase tonnage accepted at the landfill to 400,000 tonnes annually. (Source: Meath Chronicle 8/11/08, p.3)

A public meeting last Thursday organized by Rathcoole Against Incinerator Dioxins (RAID), prior to an An Bord Pleanala oral hearing starting on November 12th, heard criticism of the proposal by Energy Answers International to locate a 200 million Euro incinerator between Rathcoole and Kill, Co. Kildare, from a physicist, a biochemist, a barrister and the PRO for RAID, Liam McDermott. Speakers claimed the incinerator would not meet forthcoming air quality guidelines, while describing the company’s Environmental Impact Statement as weaker than those submitted for incinerators in Poolbeg, Dublin and Co. Meath: ‘It seemed that some of it was a cut and paste job from a similar assessment done in the US’ physicist Joe McCarthy told the meeting. Residents were urged to attend the oral hearing at the Green Isle Hotel to show their opposition to the proposal. (Source: Leinster Leader 6/11/08, p. 8)

Individual residents of the Walshestown area of Newbridge, Co. Kildare have objected to a planning application by ESB Telecoms for a 60ft high phone mast after the local residents’ association became aware of the application too lare for it to be considered fully at a residents’ meeting. Veronica Hearst, chairperson of the Walshestown Park Residents’ Association said concerns related to fears for the safety of children, given the proposed location is near a crèche and the local estate has many families with young children. (Source: Kildare Nationalist 7/11/08, p. 8; Leinster Leader 6/11/08, p6)

Joe Corcoran, manager of Sligo Airport, claimed objections to plans to expand the airport’s car park and hangers by the Dorrins and Cummeen Strand Conservation Group (DCSCG) were not helping employment in the current economic climate and that they had been caught up in the ‘bigger runway issue’, where he acknowledged the DCSCG had legitimate concerns. John McDermott, DCSCG spokesperson, expressed surprise Mr. Corcoran had gone to the media with his concerns rather than speaking first to the DCSCG and noted ‘There is an issue about a boundary to a special conservation area and that has to be resolved.’ (Source: Sligo Weekender 4/11/08, p. 5)

The Killala Community Council has submitted an appeal to An Bord Pleanala against Mato County Council’s granting of conditional permission to Langan Skip Hire for a large recycling centre at the former Asahi factory site in Killala, Co. Mayo, which locals fear will pre-empt the proper rehabilitation of the Asahi site and act as an undesirable precedent for waste-based industries on the site, including possibly an incinerator. Another company, McGrath Waste, has submitted a proposal to An Bord Pleanala to change a disused industrial unit at the site to a waste transfer station, which it has asked the Bord to treat as ‘exempted development’, which would allow the company to avoid lodging a planning application locally and thus evade local objections. (Source: Western Peoole 4/11/08, p.10)