Tag Archives: EPA

Sewer Would You Get It?

Bodger at 9:10 am November 13, 2019

A discharge from the Ringsend wastewater treatment plant into Dublin Bay in February; the Environmental Protection Agency’s Urban Waste Water Treatment in 2018 report

A report by the Environmental Protection Agency into water water treatment in Ireland last year has found that raw sewage from the equivalent of 77,000 people in 36 towns and villages across Ireland is released into the environment every day.

It’s also found that Irish Water is “taking too long” to finish the “improvements necessary to protect the environment”.

It adds: “Delays mean 13 areas will continue releasing raw sewage after 2021.”

In relation to the Ringsend Waste Water Treatment Plant, the report notes:

Ringsend waste water treatment plant opened in 2003 with a capacity to cater for a population of 1.64 million.

It now serves an average population equivalent to 1.9 million, which can increase up to 2.3 million during busy periods.

The plant fails to meet EPA and European Union treatment standards because it is overloaded and is not large enough to consistently treat the waste water it receives to the required standards.

Waste water released from the overloaded plant into the Lower Liffey Estuary will continue to breach the treatment standards until the plant is upgraded to provide additional treatment capacity.

…The quality of the treated waste water will improve as the upgrade works proceed but is not expected to start meeting the required standards until the end of 2022 at the earliest.

The report can be read in full here

Don’t Go In

Bodger at 4:09 pm May 31, 2019

This afternoon.

Merrion Strand/Sandymount Strand, Dublin 4

Problems with beaches along the Dublin coastline are persisting. Three of the five waters classified as being poor are in this region: Merrion strand, Sandymount strand and Portrane beach. In the case of Merrion strand, it risks being declassified as a bathing location next year, the EPA warns.

Urban wastewater is “the most common pressure impacting bathing water”, underlining the need for improvement in sewage treatment systems, it added.

Other bathing waters classified as poor were: Lilliput (Lough Ennell), Co Westmeath, and Clifden, Co Galway.

Five bathing areas still poor, despite overall improvement in Irish waters (irish Times)

Sam Boal/Rollingnews

Save Poolbeg

Highly Flammable

Admin at 10:46 pm January 26, 2014

The Oxigen recycling plant, Merrywell Industrial Estate, Ballymount, Dublin, top, today and, above, an aerial shot taken in July last year [baled waste to the bottom left]. The plant was destroyed by a fire that continues to smoulder and began in the early hours of yesterday morning…

Green Party’s Ciarán Cuffe writes:

“Like many Dubliners I woke up on Saturday to the acrid smell of smoke. At first we thought there was a fire in the house, but as dawn broke we could see a large dark plume of smoke in West Dublin coming from the Oxigen plant in Ballymount. It soon became clear that one of Ireland’s largest buildings had gone up in smoke….

A minimalist statement on the Oxigen website states ”Oxigen Environmental would like to assure all customers that the fire at our Ballymount, Dublin site will not disrupt any services.” Their Twitter feed was last updated on 18 December last. This lack of information is entirely unacceptable for a company that accepted over three thousand tonnes of hazardous waste at their site in 2012.
Thousands of people live close their site at Ballymount near the Red Cow Interchange, and if I was woken by the smell in Stoneybatter six kilometres away i can only imagine what the smells and fumes were like in Crumlin and Bluebell that lay in the path of the smoke cloud.

Thankfully the Environmental Protection Agency issued advice stating that those in the path of the smoke plume should stay indoors and keep windows and doors closed. However people need to know how dangerous the smoke is, and whether parents should move young children or elderly family members away from the area.

..It is unacceptable that more detailed information is not available two days after the blaze.

…South Dublin County Council needs to comment on whether their Fire Certification allowed such a large amount of flammable material to be stored in close proximity to the plant itself.

Another worry is how much pollution of groundwater and rivers has occured.

Dubliners are entitled to more detailed information about what has occurred in Ballymount.

There are questions about the cause of the fire and whether all permits and permissions were in order. We do know that there were two fires at the plant in 2012. South Dublin County Council must state whether Planning Permissions and Fire Certificates were in order.“