A University of East London consultancy study has warned of further landslides in south Galway's Slieve Aughty mountains if construction work on one of Europe's largest wind farms is not halted.
The consultants, who were commissioned by the Derrybrien Development Co-Operative, urge that a "full-scale" stability analysis be carried out of the Hibernian Wind Power site. They identify contradictions and shortcomings in the reports already published into the October 2003 landslide in the area.
The consultants also say the developers adopted a "salami-slicing" approach to securing planning approval, whereby a large project is introduced in stages to make it seem smaller.
The report, by Mr Richard Linsday and Dr Olivia Bragg of the University of East London, is due to be published tomorrow in Dublin by the Derrybrien Development Co-Operative, which has already referred the project to European Commission.
Last week, ESBI Engineering Services, which owns Hibernian Wind Power, and Ascon Ltd were fined €1,200 each in Gort District Court for causing pollution as a result of the landslide. Construction work on the €60 million project has been continuing since August, and counsel for ESBI told the court that new construction measures and procedures had been adopted on the site.
However, the consultants' report queries the effectiveness of these new methods and procedures. They note that site drainage is recommended as the solution for stabilising peat, in spite of the fact that drainage in peat soils does not produce the same effect as drainage in mineral soils, and there is evidence of "considerable instability (including a large peat slide) in some areas of the site which have already been drained". Extensive drainage will lead to much greater sedimentation in stream courses and cause potentially more instability than less.
Two months ago the European Commission issued the Government with an initial warning in relation to the project, and said the environmental impact assessments (EIAs) undertaken appeared to have been "manifestly deficient" in "failing to provide any adequate information on the geophysical risks.
This finding is corroborated by the British scientists, who note that the EIA documents were more of a public relations exercise than an objective assessment of facts and took a "superficial approach". The EIAs, which do not cover the whole 71-turbine project, addressed only noise and visual impacts, the consultants note, and would not have met British requirements for work on potentially unstable ground.
The consultants are highly critical of the two reports on the landslide of October 2003 commissioned separately by Hibernian Wind Power and by Galway County Council. Both reports investigated only a single factor in detail in exploring possible causes, and the impact of forestry already planted by Coillte in the area is not examined.
The EIAs also did not recognise that peat soils can be unstable, and that plantation forestry can make them more so. The consultants use spatial analysis to identify possible "avalanche corridors", and note that the area of most extensive deep peat has at least two major risk areas - one leading directly to the village of Derrybrien. They say the evidence for the large bog slide of October 16th, 2003 was "by no means a unique event".
Referring to the history of recorded bog slides in Ireland, they say that if the climate is shifting to more long dry spells and periods of intense rain, areas like peat will become far more sensitive to human intervention.
A Hibernian Wind Power spokesman said the company would examine the consultants' report. The findings and recommendations of Hibernian's report were being implemented in full, and this report, and that by Galway County Council, had been accepted in evidence during last week's hearing in Gort District Court, the spokesman noted.