WHILE ENVIRONMENTALISTS would welcome higher water quality standards, moves to conserve up to 49 extra harbours for shellfish production will put future improvement of piers and harbours on the long finger, a local authority official has warned.
It could lead to lead to delays and additional running costs in sewage treatment plants for coastal waters, the official in Kerry County Council cautioned.
The directive to be implemented by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is designed to protect edible shellfish against pollution.
Harbours designated nationally include Dundalk Bay and Malahide on the east coast, Wexford outer and inner harbours, Blacksod Bay, Achill Sound, Drumdiff Bay and Killala Bay in the west and Lough Swilly in the north.
In a report to Kerry county councillors this week, the county’s director of water services Oliver Ring said more of Kerry’s major harbours and bays would be affected by new additional designations under the 2006 EU Shellfish Waters Directive.
Four large harbours and bays in Kerry, which has one of the longest coastlines of any county, are to be designated.
These include much of the Kenmare river, Valentia harbour, Tralee Bay and west Shannon Ballylongford on the Shannon estuary. The latter is adjacent to the area for which the country’s first liquefied gas and regasification terminal is planned.
Nine towns and villages in Kerry discharging into the proposed designated waters will need improved waste-water treatments including ultraviolet light treatment, if the designations go ahead. Ultraviolet treatment would have to be installed, adding significantly to the running costs of treatment plants, Mr Ring said.
“There is also the potential that the proposed designation may adversely impact on the future development of piers and harbours, and on coastal protection works,” Mr Ring has written to councillors.
In particular, environmental impact statements on new plants would have to be undertaken, he added, which “won’t stop us doing things, but it will make it more difficult and more expensive”.
The council is now to write to the department asking for a redrawing of the boundaries so as not to impede the provision of waste-water treatment plant at Portmagee, as well as a pier at Renard, near Valentia, and to relocate monitoring points in Tralee Bay.
The Shellfish Waters Directive states that the directive “concerns the quality of shellfish waters and applies to those coastal and brackish waters designated by the member states as needing protection or improvement, in order to support shellfish life and growth and thus to contribute to the high quality of shellfish products directly edible by man.”
Consultation has been invited on the proposals and the closing date is the end of October.