Excessive noise and odour levels at the largest industrial plant in the State, the recently-opened Masonite timber-processing plant in Co Leitrim, must be reduced to acceptable limits, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned.
Following a meeting with representatives of residents living adjacent to the plant, the EPA said it has reiterated to the US company it must operate within the terms of an integrated pollution control licence issued in December. A prosecution against the company is pending for breaches of odour levels.
Masonite Ireland started production of moulded door facings at its £90 million facility on 15 acres near Drumsna last July. Described as a state-of-the-art timber-processing plant, it is currently operating at "40 per cent of its ultimate capacity" and employs 270 people.
"Since start-up, there have been many complaints to the agency from local residents concerning noise, odour and dust emissions," the EPA director, Mr Padraic Larkin, said yesterday. Residents from Annaduff, Jamestown and Kilmore recently formed a campaign group seeking improvements at the plant.
He accepted that residents were being affected, and there had been "unauthorised dust emissions from the facility on a number of occasions". A company spokesman said efforts were being made to reduce noise levels, which were occasionally exceeding limits to "a small extent". It was using an agreed programme which the EPA was happy with.
The odour problem, he said, related to the use of vegetable-based linseed oil in processing. It was a more difficult problem. Putty-like smells were going beyond the immediate area of the plant on occasion. It was hoped to have these rectified "by year end".
