A marine biologist has expressed serious concern about the environmental impact of Enterprise Oil's gas landfall on the north Mayo coastline. The development "would appear to offer very little to the local community" and will have a "strongly negative effect" on the environment, Dr Alex Rogers of the School of Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton says.
Discharge of heavy metals, including mercury and quantities of methanol, could contaminate marine life and affect the livelihoods of fishermen and tourism interests in the area, he says.
Dr Rogers was commissioned by the director of a local shellfish company, Mr Pat O'Donnell of Porturlin, to comment on the Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) by Enterprise Oil for its proposed pipeline landfall and gas terminal at Dooncarton and Bellanaboy Bridge near Rossport (not Pullathomas as originally announced) on Broadhaven Bay. In a preliminary comment, which will be followed by a full report, the marine biologist says the gas terminal site, on 44 hectares, will have an immediate and substantial impact on the largely undeveloped surrounding countryside.
Dr Rogers questions the exact nature of the outfall pipe which will release water from the terminal into Broadhaven Bay some four kilometres offshore. He notes that the EIA admits that the exact nature and quantities of the mercury compounds released are "unpredictable".
Citing many references on the impact of bioaccumulation of heavy metals - including the Minamata mercury deaths in Japan in the 1950s - he notes that release of such materials in even small quantities is of great concern to local fishermen. The decision to use methanol, which will also be released with discharged water, has been taken on economic grounds, he says, when there are cleaner chemicals. He also raises questions about the release of nitrogen dioxide into the air around the plant.
He says little attention appears to have been paid to habitats in the area, including Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) and birdlife. As the offshore EIS states, Broadhaven Bay is a proposed SAC and Sruwaddacon Bay, running off it, is a Special Protection Area, with high populations of overwintering wildfowl, forming part of the Glenamoy bog complex.
The Mullet peninsula is one of four areas in Ireland where populations of the threatened corncrake can be found. He describes as "superficial" the EIA survey on land, and this is mirrored by an "uninformative" and "poorly executed" study of marine fauna in the intertidal zone, shallow subtidal and offshore area, he says. Given that the coral, Lophelia Pertusa, has been recorded close to the Corrib field, towed camera surveys or submersible images should have formed part of the offshore work, he adds.
Dr Rogers says it is obvious the Bellanaboy terminal site has been chosen mainly for economic grounds and for access to the sea as a dumping site for waste water. He asks if alternative options have been considered, such as at Bellacorick where there is already a peat-powered fire station or even in Galway where the linkup with the natural gas system is proposed.
Acknowledging that Ireland has "an urgent requirement for expansion of the offshore hydrocarbon industry", he says the Government should give the longterm implications "serious consideration".
Mr Pat O'Donnell of Porturlin Shellfish has submitted a copy of the study to the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Fahey. "We are employing 12 people here in crab processing, and have done since 1992. I come from a family of 11, and we made it through the hard times here," Mr O'Donnell says. "Enterprise Oil wasn't around then, and we don't need it now."