With a colossal environmental pool of data at its fingertips, primarily because of its responsibility for environmental monitoring in Ireland, the Environmental Protection Agency is uniquely placed to carry out or commission a great deal of applied research. But back in 1994 there were ominous voids, such as lack of comprehensive details of the extent of, for example, water pollution affecting lakes or growing air pollution in cities, notably Dublin.
The environmental monitoring research programme with a budget of £5 million, with 50 per cent support from the European Development Fund, enabled 18 projects to be pursued in areas ranging from studies of estuaries to contamination of fresh water by cyanobacteria (which produce toxins in lakes and are associated with algal blooms). All of these will be completed this year, if they have not been already.
In many respects, this body of research was about "identifying knowledge gaps" and finding answers to fill them, according to the EPA director, Dr Padraic Larkin. This was typified, for instance, by the presence of some 6,000 lakes in Ireland, only a fraction of which were being monitored.
Another aim was to support innovative solutions of environmental problems of concern to industry, such as those enterprises that produce significant amounts of waste.
Allied to this was a pilot demonstration programme to promote cleaner industry with an emphasis on eliminating waste at source with companies coming under the Integrated Pollution Control licensing system. Participating companies have implemented environmental management systems and cleaner production technologies. A total of 14 projects were realised under this heading.
"We decided to show them what could be done and the results were reasonably spectacular," Dr Larkin said; none more so than the case of the SIFA pharmaceutical company in Shannon, Co Clare, which "turned a waste stream into a commercial product" and in the process converted a £300,000-a-year waste disposal charge to a £35,000-a-year revenue gain. The waste stream contents are now processed to generate sodium acetate which is sold to the dyestuff industry and other sectors.
Such success can be replicated a lot more throughout industry, he added. In addition, it pushes the environment further up the agenda. The approach of saying to a company "We know how you can save £2 million", rather than "You must spend £2 million on a waste treatment plant" is very persuasive.
A new tranche of funds over the next seven years is now being sought, some £21 million, to answer a new set of questions, Dr Larkin explained. The figure will be finalised shortly and incorporated into the National Plan.
The first priority will be to examine how key sectors such as transport, tourism and agriculture can be integrated without detrimental environmental impact, or one infringing the other. The second will focus on the huge infrastructural development currently in progress with a view to examining if the environment is being properly factored in.
The third will concentrate on the issue of environmentally-sustainable resource management; watching key indicators of the state of the environment. There will be new issues to be looked at such as the effects of "endocrine disrupters" in water and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) carried in the air.
Crucial issues such as determining "what the environment can bear" will reflect the new thrust. What are the critical loads, say, with acidifying gases? What are the sensitive species/areas vulnerable to these gases, which can have such a cascading effect on vulnerable areas such as granite lakes (which don't have the same buffering capacity as their limestone equivalents)?
Already, Dr Larkin noted, there are proposals for massive reductions of acidifying gases such as nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide which are being reflected in power-generating companies like the ESB switching to gas-based systems. When these restrictions kick in they will have an impact on transport, industry and agriculture in particular, he predicted.