The Environmental Protection Agency has decided not to grant a licence for a controversial piggery in Co Mayo, near some of Ireland's most important lakes, despite signalling its intention to do so last July.
Since it issued its "proposed determination" - in effect, signalling its intention to allow Mr Leo O'Reilly of Murneen, Claremorris, to build a 500-sow unit at Coolaght near Kiltimagh, by granting an integrated pollution control licence (IPC) - the agency's position has been heavily criticised by angler, fishery and environmental interests. The reasons for now rejecting the application for an IPC licence were the pollution threat to nearby waters and concerns about arrangements for spreading its slurry wastes.
The EPA said it was "not satisfied that any emissions from the facility will not cause significant environmental pollution given that, in the absence of treatment, the potential risk to the sensitive waters is unacceptably high".
It added: "This development does not represent BATNEEC (best available technology not entailing excessive costs) considering the proposed location of the activity and the associated spreading activity."
The North Western Regional Fisheries Board welcomed the EPA's revised opinion. It chief executive, Mr Vincent Roche, said it had vehemently opposed the proposed piggery since permission was first sought in 1992. "It had twice been refused planning permission by Mayo County Council and by An Bord Pleanala but had eventually secured permission as a result," he said.
The change in legislation had precluded the council and the planning appeals board from taking environmental factors into account, and permission was eventually granted for the piggery. "The development could not proceed, however, without an IPC licence, and the board had been shocked when the EPA indicated it proposed to grant a licence," Mr Roche said.
Anglers and those campaigning for the protection of very vulnerable freshwaters in the west would welcome the outcome, Mr Tony Waldron of the Connacht Angling Council said.
"This case has exposed serious questions about the EPA decision-making process, given the agency was made fully aware of the history of previous applications. To have allowed it proceed in that context would have been inexcusable," he said.
Fishery boards claimed the slurry disposal arrangements concentrated around Barnacarroll Hill, between Claremorris and Knock, threatened two of Europe's most important fisheries: the Lough Conn/Moy river catchment and the Corrib system taking in loughs Carra, Mask and Corrib.
The EPA, it is understood, thought the conditions spelled out last July were so stringent that the piggery would not threaten such a sensitive location. It believed its demand that slurry be digested/thermally treated amounted to a prohibition on slurry-spreading.
Mr O'Reilly had insisted he had enough land for spreading without environmental risk.
