Coastwatch group to meet port company over `threat' to birds

Coastwatch Ireland and the Drogheda Port Company are to meet today in an effort to reach agreement on the environmental parameters of the port's dredging programme.

Work on the programme has been halted following complaints by Coastwatch that the port company's operations have seriously damaged part of a designated Special Protection Area (SPA) for wild birds.

Until now, both sides in the dispute have been exchanging solicitors' letters about the methods being used to remove spartina grass from the mudflats at Baltray, on the north side of the Boyne estuary, to provide alternative feeding grounds.

Ms Karin Dubsky, co-ordinator of Coastwatch, described the operation as a "mudflat massacre", because the top layer of mud - containing the most nutritious food, such as molluscs and worms - was being removed with the spartina.

She said "giant molehills of mud" were being created, depriving birds of some of their food supply just as they were arriving from Greenland to spend the winter in the Boyne estuary, which was one of first locations they reached in Ireland.

Coastwatch was so concerned about the loss of habitat in what Ms Dubsky described as "the second-most important SPA on the east coast" that it took Drogheda Port Company to the High Court last month in an effort to have the work halted.

The court decided that the port could proceed with its EU-funded dredging programme, which involves removing an estimated one million tonnes of sand and gravel from the river channel and dumping it in a polder on the south side of the estuary.

With the agreement of Duchas, the Heritage Service, the court ruled that, since the polder and its mudflats had been used by wintering birds, the port would have to provide compensatory feeding grounds at Baltray by eradicating the spartina infestation.

A number of conditions were laid down, including the use of wide-tracked machines to minimise the impact on the mudflats and the work was to be supervised by a suitably-qualified marine consultant. These were not complied with, Coastwatch maintains.

Mr Pat McDonnell, the port company's chief executive, said the work had been carried out "in line with the parameters set down by our consultant", Dr Beverly Kelso, but she wasn't sitting out there looking at it all the time it was going on.

He said all the work was being done as part of a port development plan under the EU-funded transport programme. It had also been inspected by Duchas officers on Tuesday and they seemed quite happy with it, though Coastwatch was still opposed.

Because of its continuing objections, Mr McDonnell said the spartina removal work had now been halted. "It would be much better if Coastwatch would sit down with us and Duchas to work this out together, because that's the only way forward."