A FORMER Bord Gáis Éireann engineering manager has said that a compromise Corrib gas refinery location proposed by north Mayo residents is “technically feasible”.
The coastal location for the gas refinery or terminal at Glinsk, proposed by a group of Kilcommon parish community leaders last weekend, has a “number of advantages”, according to Leo Corcoran, former Bord Gáis engineering manager and consultant to An Taisce.
These advantages included distance from a drinking water catchment and the fact that it would not require an onshore production pipeline, Mr Corcoran said.
“Most engineers will agree that 50m cliffs, such as those at Glinsk, don’t pose a technical problem, and refineries have been built in such locations before. The only problem for Shell is the money it has already poured into an unsuitable location at Bellanaboy,” Mr Corcoran said yesterday .
Shell consultants RPS, who had identified the location in an initial list of possible alternative routes for the onshore pipeline, moved to distance themselves from the debate over the compromise yesterday. Shell EP Ireland has already rejected the compromise, while Bishop of Killala Dr John Fleming, Mayo Fine Gael TD Michael Ring and Labour Party president Michael D Higgins have urged Minister for Energy Eamon Ryan and Shell to respond positively.
In a statement, RPS said that it “had, and have, no role in the identification of the terminal site which is fixed at Bellanaboy”, and said it had not suggested Glinsk as a site for this.
RPS confirmed that Glinsk, near Belderrig, had been identified last summer “as a possible site for a landfall and pipeline route”.
“Following investigations and surveys we found it to be a very unsuitable location for a landfall as it was very exposed on a 50m high cliff,” RPS said.
“In addition, a pipeline route from Glinsk back to Bellanaboy would be environmentally unacceptable as it passes through some 6km of intact blanket bog which is a Priority 1 Habitat and traverses an EU Life Programme bog restoration.
“In September 2007 we shortlisted three routes, but dismissed the Glinsk route on environmental and technical grounds. These grounds are fully outlined in the environmental impact statement which is published this week as part of the statutory planning applications.”
However, Mr Corcoran, who represented An Taisce in its objection to a integrated pollution prevention control licence for the Bellanaboy refinery, challenged the technical arguments and said that RPS was being “misleading” in its statement.
“RPS knows that a pipeline route from Glinsk to Bellanaboy isn’t necessary if the refinery is at Glinsk,“ Mr Corcoran said.
Further support for the compromise has come from the Erris Inshore Fishermen’s Association.