Sir, – Ciarán Parkin is sadly misguided about the methods used in “traditional peat cutting” (September 19th).
In the 33 site visits we carried out this spring to the designated bogs, nary a sleán nor a donkey cart was to be seen. JCBs with tracks gouged out faces of turf up to three metres high; vast expanses of slick fields of wet turf extruded from other machinery glistened in the sun.
The drains ran rich in sediments destined to pollute our surface waters.
Your correspondent is, however, correct that Bord na Móna is causing massive damage to ecosystems and watercourses.
Despite EU law, no environmental impact assessment has been carried out on their enormous operations.
Even more amazingly, other industrial peat extractors operate with neither planning permission nor EPA licences.
Is it any wonder the small-scale turfcutters think that they too can defy the law? – Yours, etc,