EPA says Wicklow dump now polluting local water

An illegal dump on lands owned by Roadstone in Blessington, Co Wicklow, is starting to contaminate the local ground water supply, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

Dr Mary Kelly, director general of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said remedial action was needed to deal with the illegal dump, which - it emerged yesterday - may be more than three times as big as originally thought. However, she stressed, there was "no immediate threat" to public health from contamination.

Addressing the Joint Committee on Environment and Local Government, Dr Kelly said the damage from the dump might not be fully apparent for up to a decade. "The evidence that we have is that there is contamination beginning to occur into the ground water from the site. However, it's moving at a very slow pace."

Describing the situation with illegal dumping in Co Wicklow as "completely unacceptable", she said: "We are not happy at all that there is an illegal landfill so close to the residents" in Blessington.

The EPA last week signalled its intention to refuse to grant a licence to Roadstone Dublin, a subsidiary of CRH, for the development of a landfill on the site of the illegal dump. Dr Kelly said that while the company had 28 days to appeal the proposed decision, the EPA was "not convinced" that all of the material at the site needed to be landfilled.

She said from the point of view of the environment, the best solution was to reuse as much of the material as possible "and not put it into another hole in the ground somewhere else".

However, in a statement yesterday, Roadstone Dublin said the its remediation plan, submitted as part of its waste licence application, was "the most appropriate solution to protect the environment and conforms to the Minister for the Environment's recent policy directive for dealing with illegal waste".

It added that water quality tests in the area showed "the waste is posing no current threat to drinking water supplies".

Dr Kelly said the EPA's information from Roadstone indicated that there was up to 180,000 tonnes of waste on the site - almost four times the original 50,000-tonne estimate. She expressed concern at the fact that many "if not most" local authorities had failed to produce an inventory on closed dumps, as they were obliged to do under law.

Asked about a controversial dump at Whitestown near Baltinglass, Dr Kelly agreed with Liz McManus TD (Labour) that it was bad practice to reward people for illegal dumping by establishing an official facility on the site of such activity.

Senator Shane Ross (Ind) congratulated the EPA on its initial refusal for the Blessington landfill, remarking: "It's very unusual for CRH to have anything refused to them in this country".

Ciarán Cuffe TD (Greens) said it was "outrageous and incredible" of CRH to have denied knowledge of the dumping when it appeared before the committee two years ago. The company has been asked to reappear before the committee along with Wicklow County Council and An Taisce.