Council to meet on waste at Roadstone land

Wicklow County Council will hold a special meeting today amid a deepening row over how to deal with illegal waste at Dillonstown on Roadstone land near Blessington.

The meeting follows a draft decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to refuse Roadstone a licence to re-bury the waste in a proposed engineered landfill at Dillonstown. It is unusual for a local council to convene during the August holiday period.

The new landfill would have cost Roadstone several million euro, but the option was thought to be cheaper than digging up the waste and removing it to a licensed dump.

Roadstone has estimated that more than 50,000 tonnes of waste were dumped illegally on its 600-acre site without its knowledge or consent.

However, the director of the EPA, Dr Mary Kelly, told an Oireachtas committee that there may be up to three times that tonnage of waste on site.

The location is of significance, being on a regional aquifer - an important water source.

Roadstone has, however, commissioned an assessment of the damage caused by the dump which found that the aquifer was not contaminated.

The company says it wants to deal with waste responsibly and in applying for a waste licence to build a landfill, was seeking to achieve this.

However, local residents, some of whom live just a few hundred yards from the dump, have claimed the Roadstone landfill could effectively become a new regional dump.

Minister for the Environment Dick Roche, who represents the Wicklow constituency, made it clear earlier this year that he would prefer rubbish to be removed from all illegal dumps.

Mr Roche said at the time that he would like to see the landowner and/or the illegal operator funding the costs involved.

Wicklow county councillors are opposed to the waste remaining on site.

Some councillors were incensed when they discovered that Roadstone would not have needed planning permission for the landfill, as the company was responding to a Section 55 "clean up" order imposed by Wicklow County Council itself.

Roadstone said residual waste would be landfilled in a licensed facility offsite, if the EPA required this.

In a statement last night Roadstone said it takes its responsibilities in cleaning up the site very seriously.

The statement said that Roadstone now awaits the final decision of the EPA and will co-operate fully with the EPA to ensure the clean-up of the site commences at the earliest possible opportunity.