The visual impact of the Boyne valley and the Royal Canal will be improved by landscaping conducted as part of a €40 million waste management facility on the Kildare-Meath border, a Bord Pleanála oral hearing was told yesterday. The facility would include a 25.4-hectare landfill.
Speaking on behalf of the developer, Thornton Recycling, Hugh O'Neill SC said more than 123,000 trees would be introduced as well as special "bunds" or ridges.
The hearing in Trim is examining the proposed development of the facility at Calf Field, Ballinadrummy.
It includes a recycling centre, a non-hazardous residual landfill, an end-of-life vehicle-processing facility, a dry recyclable sorting facility, a bio-diesel recovery facility and a wood-recycling and tyre treatment centre.
Mr O'Neill said the facility would be of strategic national and international importance in helping Ireland reach its environmental obligations within the EU and the Kyoto protocol.
There were no other end-of-life vehicle-recycling or tyre-recycling centres in the country, and the EU stipulated that landfilling with shredded tyres would have to be stopped by 2006, and 85 per cent of the weight of old vehicles would have to recycled by the end of 2006.
The hearing was told that the landfill, at Arthurstown, Kill, Co Kildare, and the KTK facility at Kilcullen would be closed in 2007, leaving 860,000 tonnes of waste without a destination.
The proposed landfill would have a lifespan of 13 years, and take in 220,000 tonnes of waste every year from Kildare, Meath and Dublin.
Thornton's environmental director, Connor Walsh, said householders on two nearby roads would receive €6,500 per house out of a total of €5.2 million which has been set aside for community gain.
When asked to respond to objectors' claims about the company's record, Mr Walsh acknowledged that it had a number of convictions against it.
He said the company had changed in the last five years, with a new management team which included an environmental section, which now had five expert staff.
He said it was committed to implementing EPA guidelines and licences.
Several consultants spoke on behalf of the company. Engineer Donnachadh O'Brien, from White, Young and Green, told the hearing of protective measures to ensure leachates did not escape and the monitoring of the Royal Canal.
Dr Brian Sheridan, from Odour Monitoring Ireland, said that on the basis of his studies no odours would emanate from the landfill provided proposed techniques were implemented.
Thomas Byrnes, landscape architect, said the view of the Royal Canal would be screened from the site through landscaping.