EPA asked to delay Aughinish ruling

FARMERS in Askeaton, Co Limerick, have called on the Environmental Protection Agency to suspend consideration of a new pollution control licence for the Aughinish Alumina plant pending a definitive explanation of the deaths of 62 horses on one farm in the area.

The demand was made by the Askeaton Ballysteen Animal Health Committee. Its spokesman Mr Donagh O'Grady, said he was not blaming Aughinish Alumina for the deaths of the horses on the farm of Andy and Doris Sheehy. However, the EPA's £2 million study had not been able to rule the company out "definitively" in relation to animal health problems in the area.

This was notwithstanding an EPA interim report, which had found no connection between the horse deaths and local industry. People from the area were not satisfied with the EPA's role, Mr O'Grady said.

Suspending deliberation on the granting of an integrated pollution control (IPC) licence for Aughinish Alumina, due to be finalised within a month, would restore the EPA's credibility, he said. The process should not be resumed until the cause of the horse deaths was fully proven.

The committee is concerned at what it believes is inadequate air monitoring. Mr O'Grady claimed that local people, having purchased their own monitoring equipment for a few hundred pounds, had established the presence of air contaminants "which the EPA said were not there".

It also expressed reservations about the EPA's suggestion of on line monitoring from industry via computer to its headquarters. "There are hundreds of industries responsible for emissions. They cannot be put on line by the EPA to monitor every one of them."

The Sheehys claimed that the horses died from a rare disease which they associated with aluminium deposits in tissue. The Department of Agriculture said that its veterinary staff initially believed another disease might have been responsible, but it had been prevented by the Sheehys from pursuing an investigation on the farm.

In addition, a UCD veterinary pathology expert, Prof Brian Sheahan, said that the granulomatous enteritis condition - which the Sheehys claim was established in autopsies carried out at the National Equine Centre in Co Kildare was not associated with a high aluminium content.

An NEC spokesman said yesterday that, because of the "very sensitive nature of the issue", it was not in a position to comment on the cause of the horse deaths.

Meanwhile, Cork Environmental Alliance (CEA), the only group to pursue objections to the IPC licence at a hearing in Limerick, said it had lodged an objection with the Office of the Ombudsman after the Department of Enterprise and Employment failed to make available a copy of an agreement between the IDA and Aughinish Alumina.

A CEA spokesman, Mr Derry Chambers, said that the alliance believed it was entitled to a copy of the agreement. "We intend to pursue this, in Europe if necessary", he added.