The future of Connacht's waste management hangs in the balance today as Galway's local authorities vote on the draft consultancy plan for the region.
Pressure to reject the strategy, which provides for a combination of thermal treatment, or incineration, landfill and recycling, has mounted over the last few days, with the Galway executive of the Irish Farmers' Association being the latest group to voice "serious reservations".
Galway's councillors arriving at corporation headquarters in the City Hall this evening also face another "silent" demonstration organised by the Galway for a Safe Environment (GSE) umbrella group.
Earlier today GSE is also involved in a demonstration at the controversial riverside walk along the Corrib, which was recently landscaped, and is due to be officially opened this afternoon by Galway Corporation.
On the waste issue, the IFA's Galway branch is worried about the impact of a thermal treatment plant on Ireland's "clean image" as a food-producer, and also takes issue with the choice of three potential sites for landfill. It also believes each county should deal with its own waste rather than have a situation where Galway is the disposal point for the Connacht region.
The branch chairman, Mr John Mannion, says the three landfill sites earmarked by consultants M.C. O'Sullivan were in areas of significant agricultural importance, and this would impinge on food production, along with quality of life of residents. The IFA believes unpopulated forest areas should be used, and even then only in conjunction with a mandatory recycling programme. This would lead to selective landfill, it says.
One of the constituent anti-dump bodies, the Ballinahistle/Kilrickle group from east Galway, has already commissioned a report on the area's archaeological merits and believes the Connacht region could learn from Nova Scotia in Canada in terms of waste disposal.
The demographics of Nova Scotia are similar to those of Connacht, according to Mr Tom Finn, a farmer and group representative, and the community there had rejected a government bid to build an incinerator. The waste strategy is now community-owned, and managed, and has achieved 50 per cent waste recycling since its inception in 1989, he says.
The IFA has pointed out that farmers are already recycling waste plastic since the imposition of a levy on silage covers some years back, and so it believes this must be the way forward for domestic and industrial waste management.
For their part, the consultants have stated that they are laying much emphasis on recycling, and householders or businesses which fail to divide waste into separate bins after the plan is adopted will face legal action.
However, the landfill aspect of the strategy has already attracted some legal activity, with proceedings filed by landowners in the Kilrickle area after they were served with notice that council engineers would be inspecting their lands.
As for the thermal treatment dimension, public representatives in Galway city itself have come under pressure over the shortlist of four potential sites for a plant, all on the eastern side. Galway for a Safe Environment (GSE) has collected more than 22,000 signatures in a petition that opposes incineration.
The group points to the number of countries that have stopped building thermal treatment plants, and says some countries have also shown that it is possible to reduce dependence on landfill by up to 60 per cent. GSE is particularly concerned about the health effects, and during several public debates it has drawn on expertise from abroad to back this up.
The latest opinion comes from Dr Vyvyan Howard of the University of Liverpool, who has taken issue with a health report compiled by M.C. O'Sullivan, recently distributed to Galway city and county councillors. He challenges the assertion that incineration is a "tried and trusted" method and notes that in Britain virtually every incinerator was shut down four years ago as a result of health fears associated with them.
Dr Howard says any risk assessment is meaningless unless a thorough hazard identification, and hazard and exposure assessments, have been performed. He cites evidence from research in Holland that dioxin emissions have negative effects on children's intelligence and their ability to fight infections.
The author of the consultants' study has said he would have no problem in living near a thermal treatment plant himself. Mr P.J. Rudden told Galway city councillors at a meeting earlier this month that he would have one "in my own backyard where I live in Dublin" and would have no problem moving to Galway either, if and when one was built here.
Galway Chamber of Commerce has welcomed the consultants' strategy document, in terms of its regional approach, and has said waste management has been "too local an issue" for too long.
It supports the concept of recycling, reduction and reuse of waste, and would like to see Galway take the lead as an "eco-city".
The elected representatives will be put to the pins of their respective collars this evening. The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, had requested that all local authorities decide by June 30th; the landfill site at Poolboy, Ballinasloe, is receiving 90,000 tonnes of city waste a year alone, and is at bursting point. It is expected to close in the next two years. The landfill, which caters for all of Galway's waste, was originally expected to remain open until the end of 2005.
Significantly, last week Louth County Council refused to adopt a draft waste management plan for the north-east. That local authority has put off a decision until September.
