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Sewage group query Foyle ownership
09.01.12
by Caoimhinn Barr, Inishowen Independent
A question over the ownership of the waters of Lough
Foyle has thrown the proposed Moville sewerage
treatment system into fresh doubt.
A group of locals opposed to the controversial plant
think they have found a fresh chink in the Donegal
County Council plan; namely that the waters
surrounding east Inishowen are under the
jurisdiction of the British Crown Estate.
In a recently published Compulsory Purchase Order [CPO]
the Council signaled its intent to buy a section of
Lough Foyle waters from the Irish Department of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. But Community For a
Clean Estuary spokesman, Enda Craig, believes the
proposed move is not legal.
“The British Crown Estate considers itself to hold
proprietary rights of the Foyle seabed but in this
case, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and
Food is claiming ownership. The waters are clearly
disputed and the Department does not have the right
to sell a section of water which it clearly doesn’t
own in the first place,” he said.
“In the CPO the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food is listed as the owner or reputed owner of
the water in question but we have since discovered
that reputed owners have no legal standing,” Craig
added. |
The Community for a
Clean Estuary has opposed the pumping of sewage into
the Foyle estuary for more than two decades and is
currently awaiting a High Court date when it will
challenge An Bord Pleanala’s ruling last year to
give the Council project the green light.
“I really think that Donegal County Council won’t
get past this one. No work can be carried out on the
Foyle until the question of ownership has been
cleared up. If they want to run a pipe from A to B
then they must have the proper permission of the
owners, which in this case appears to be the Crown
Estate. This has been another gamble by the Council,
trying to get the sewerage plant through,” Enda
said. |
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Enda Craig. |
At a meeting last
September Community For a Clean Estuary supporters
vowed to continue to fight to block the Council from
pumping effluent into Lough Foyle.
To date the group has successfully delayed the
project for a generation and hopes to scupper it
completely at the High Court later this year.
Inishowen’s seven county councillors unanimously
called for an independent inquiry into the
Moville-Greencastle sewerage system at an electoral
area meeting in Carn in November 2010. That inquiry
has yet to take place. |
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