by Damian Dowds, Inishowen Independent
A TWO-day oral hearing by An Bord Pleanala into the
proposed Moville Greencastle Sewerage Scheme and
controversial treatment plant at Carnagarve
concluded this week.
The proposed sewerage treatment plant at Carnagarve
has been bedevilled by controversy since it was
first proposed some five years ago and An Bord
Pleanála’s hearing, which ran on Tuesday and
Wednesday in the Carlton Redcastle Hotel, will
decide the issue one way or the other. That said,
local pressure group Community for a Clean Estuary
has threatened to appeal to Europe if the treatment
plant and outflow pipe gets the green light.
Donegal County Council has proposed a wastewater
treatment plant with a capacity to serve 9,000
residents in the Moville/Greencastle area. It is
thought the proposed plant will discharge treated
effluent into Lough Foyle at a depth of 10m some
300m from the shore at Lafferty’s Lane, Carnagarve.
Local residents and environmentalists have opposed
the plan.
“We cannot sit by while Donegal County Council tries
to destroy the Foyle estuary,” Enda Craig,
spokesperson for the Community for a Clean Estuary,
said. “There will be severe environmental
degradation in Lough Foyle if this plant is allowed
to proceed.”
Mr Craig yesterday claimed that Donegal County
Council will seek to define Lough Foyle as ‘coastal
waters’ rather than a ‘tidal estuary’.
Tidal estuaries are subject to stricter EU
Directives on water quality than coastal waters and
Mr Craig criticised Donegal County Council’s attempt
to, as he described it, circumvent EU directives.
Donegal County Council has already provided An Bord
Pleanála with an environmental impact assessment for
the plant, but construction work on the Greencastle
breakwater, some 1.5km from where the outflow pipe
will discharge into the Foyle, will require further
investigations. Council contractors were last week
understood to be working to determine the flow of
effluent from the outflow pipe with concerns that
the tidal flow will not carry it out to sea.
Representatives of the planning appeals authority
will hear the case for and against the scheme, as
put by representatives of Donegal County Council as
well as those people from the local area who have
made written submissions to An Bord Pleanála
objecting to plan in its current form.
During the two days of the hearing, those on each
side of the debate will have the opportunity to
cross-examine each other’s case.
An Bord Pleanála representatives will also visit the
proposed site for the treatment plant, in Carnagarve,
as well as the location identified for the pumping
station and outflow pipe at Lafferty’s Lane.
“I don’t know of one person in this area who does
not want to see a proper sewerage scheme put in
place for the Greencastle/Moville area,” Mr Craig
concluded. “We just don’t want the outflow to go
into Lough Foyle.” |
