The British company operating Dublin's "state-of-the-art" sewage treatment plant in Ringsend is being severely penalised by Dublin City Council over its odour problems, The Irish Times has learned.
The council has withheld agreement to a final account for the €300 million project until Anglia Water complies with stringent requirements to eliminate the nuisance, which is now the subject of a legal action by the European Commission.
It is understood that millions of euro in contractual claims by the company's Irish subsidiary, Celtic Anglia, are outstanding. The council will also be seeking reimbursement of the €1 million it has invested in odour-abatement measures.
Senior council officials are bemused by the commission's legal action, as the Ringsend plant is held up as a model in Brussels and has been visited by numerous delegations from new EU member states and other European countries.
The legal action is also ironic given that 85 per cent of the cost of the Dublin Bay Project, which includes a new sewage pumping station at Sutton, with an underwater pipeline linking it to Ringsend, was financed by the EU Cohesion Fund.
The plant, which has a throughput of 500 million litres of waste water per day, was developed under a "design, build and operate" contract by the ABA consortium, involving Ascon, sewerage specialists Black & Veatch and Anglia Water.
Anglia Water became the operator when it was commissioned in July 2003, with a 20-year contract, and also set up an Irish subsidiary to tender for other sewage treatment plants.
Attempts to contact the company yesterday were unsuccessful.
Standards for the plant's operation were laid down in the environmental impact statement on the project and covered effluent levels, sludge disposal and odour control, which was set at 100 parts per billion at its perimeter fence.
But Dublin city engineer Michael Phillips said the city council "wasn't happy that this was giving us results for adjoining residential areas, so we've improved and extended the odour-monitoring system, putting it on a more scientific basis".
Although odour is relatively subjective, the latest scientific methods to measure it through "olfactometry" are now being used in Ringsend. Apart from these tests, Mr Phillips said, his personnel "go round the area and log it if they detect smells".
As a result of the €1 million investment in odour control, the situation had improved immensely over the past year, he said. Channels carrying waste water through the plant had been covered and bio-filters installed to reduce the problem.
"There were virtually no complaints from October to February, and then a number of mechanical issues arose that allowed odours to escape from vents," Mr Phillips explained. "We're now putting odour controls on them and surveying for others."
The remedial works were all recommended by the council's advisers, MACL, headed by McCarthy Ryder, consultant engineers.As for who would foot the bill for dealing with the problem, he said the council would be discussing that with Celtic Anglia when they came to settle the final account. The work was done because "we could not have the situation continue the way it was".
As a result, the council will not consent to the plant being legally transferred to Celtic Anglia pending such a resolution. Significant sums of money are also being withheld and additional claims left unsettled until the council is satisfied.
One of the main concerns of senior council officials is that public perception of odours arising from the treatment plant could reinforce opposition in the area to the already controversial municipal waste-incinerator planned for Poolbeg.
However, the city engineer emphasised that one of the real benefits of the plant was a "vast improvement" in Dublin Bay's water quality. The council hopes this will win the first-ever Blue Flags for Dollymount Strand and the Shelly Banks at Poolbeg.