No easy answers to problems of landfill sites
Roisín de Rossa went to Laois to see how the County Council's lack of
action is adding to a growing environmental crisis
Kyletalisha is the county dump for Laois and surrounding areas. In
behind the flower pots, and a tall security fence, with large notices
advertising Laois County Council's commitment to environmental
standards lies 120 acres of raised bog land upon which municipal and
industrial waste had been dumped for over 30 years. In through the
gates there is a line of lonely hoppers labelled for waste separation
- oil, plastics, glass, textiles, bottles and cans - placed there by
Rehab, and a plethora of notices proclaiming the virtues of
recycling., and calling on clients to separate their garbage.
Compacting machines trundle back and forth crushing the refuse and
the bog below, squeezing out the toxic leachate into the surface
water level down into the clay base of the bog.. Does Laois County
Council have a licence for this?
Kyletalisha does not have a licence. Following the 1996 Waste
Management Act, all landfill sites need a licence from the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Laois applied early last year,
only to discover that in the act it is specified that where sites
take more than 25,000 tons a year, an Environmental Impact Study is
also required. Environmental impact studies take a while and money to
produce, checking up on the birds and the bees, the flora and fauna.
Meanwhile garbage continues to be dumped. Legal or illegal, it makes
little difference what you call it. The reality is that the garbage
has to go somewhere.
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Laois County Council has to move away from the idea that the Tidy
Towns competition every year is an adequate way of protecting the
environment. Participation of the community is essential to evolving
an adequate waste management strategy for the county
Brian Stanley
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Kyletalisha has been a sensitive issue over the years. So sensitive
in fact that when the An Phoblacht reporter agreed with one of the
engineers to visit the on-site research project into leachate
treatment for a guided tour, the County Secretary and the County
Engineer both wanted to be part of the proceedings, and were.
Seven years ago there was outrage over the dump, when it emerged that
£200,000, which was to be spent on remedial works at the dump, had
actually been spent on reports, including an impact study and legal
fees. A further £700,000 at that time was required to implement the
recommendations of the report, much of which has now been done.
The research project at the site to investigate peat as a natural
treatment for leachate - the highly toxic liquid which runs out of
landfill dumps. The project is being jointly run by Kerry (at the
Dingle dump), Laois and the EPA at a cost of around £500,000.
Leachate is drained out of the bog, into an HDPE (High density poly
ethylene) lined collecting pool - a `lagoon' - and is then pumped
into one of several huge silos containing six foot deep peat beds.
The leachate is monitored as it comes in and out to test the effects
of treatment through peat, and various points in the outflow into the
river Triogue, which flows into the Barrow, are monitored by
computers.
Of course the drains into the underlying bog across the 120 acre site
are not already there, but as the County Engineer, Gerry McGlinchey
explained, the site is being `retrospectively drained' with a network
of pipes under the dump. The research project is mid-term, and it is
too soon for results. But a number of dedicated people are involved
in the project which may have major implications, be they positive or
negative, for Kyletalisha, Dingle, and even further afield.
On these results depend the acceptability of the Kyletalisha dump as
a properly administered landfill site which meets the conditions laid
down by the EU and the 1996 Act. `Retrospective drainage' for
retrospective impact assessment. Meanwhile the dumping goes on - what
else can it do?
``But,'' says Brian Stanley, who is involved with a local environmental
group based in Portlaoise and will be a Sinn Fein candidate in the
forthcoming local elections in Portlaoise, ``it's not a matter of
where, or how, to build landfill sites. It's a matter of getting away
from landfill altogether. You can't blame Laois County Council for
the mistakes of the past, for indiscriminate dumping across the bog
site. There is no doubt that considerable effort is going into
researching how to make this landfill site acceptable, if not safe.
The real question is how much is the local authority doing to promote
waste practices which reduce the need for landfill sites in the first
place. We're talking about the Three R's, reduce, re-use, re-cycle,
and Laois County Council is doing very little to promote these.''
Last year two community groups applied for funding to carry out
environmental awareness. They were turned down. The County Secretary,
Louis Brennan, reaffirmed the County Council's strong commitment to
the Three R's, and waste separation at source. ``But the practice is
different,'' says Brian.
In 1988 the council agreed to privatise waste collection. At the time
Liam Hyland, now MEP, then a county councillor, argued that it was
important that people should have a choice in waste collection. ``As
if it matters who collects your garbage, so long as it goes?'' says
Brian. ``But privatisation has brought heavy costs to the community.''
Council Secretary, Louis Brennan, points out that under the 1996 Act,
the Local Authority has power to insist on separation of waste at
source. But Tom O'Brien, who is one of the executive directors of
Erwin Cobbe's waste disposal company, which collects 30 tons of
garbage a day in Laois, Kildare and parts of Offaly, points out that
they don't collect recycled paper at the moment. There is no market
for recycled waste: Smurfit's, which used to buy paper to recycle for
£10 a ton, not only don't buy it any longer, but actually charge for
the delivery. It's hardly in Erwin Cobbe's interest to make separate
collection of paper. Has Laois County Council instructed Cobbe to
continue?
One immediate result is that the collection charges have risen
astronomically in the town. Erwin Cobbe now charges £1 a bag. It was
50p. They charge £11.50 per month for the loan of the wheelie bins
which they collect, which is £138 per annum per household. The
monthly rate started at $4.50. There used to be six or seven rubbish
collectors. But now Erwin Cobbe and Midland refuse have become the
main collectors in town.
With delivery charges into Kyletalisha dump now at £25 a ton, there
is no reason to believe that Midland Refuse or Erwin Cobbe will keep
the price steady. Yet waste, which is the responsibility of the local
authority, in some counties is collected free at the kerbside. Why
are the Laois community having to pay so dear for waste disposal
which does not even encourage separation?
As Brian pointed out to the County Secretary, ``the only way that
waste separation will happen is through education and through free
provision of separate containers for separated waste at kerbside
collection. The ball stops with the local authority. Hiving off the
responsibility to private enterprise, and using the market, and Mr
Smurfit's predilection for the rainforest trees, to determine prices,
ends up as an excuse to ignore the Three R's, or an incentive to dump
rubbish all over the place, as is apparent on the bog laneways around
Kyletalishisha.''
The council cannot be condemned for the environmental mistakes of the
past, but as Brian says, ``The council has to move away from the idea
that the Tidy Towns competition every year is an adequate way of
protecting the environment. Participation of the community is
essential to evolving an adequate waste management strategy for the
county.''
Louis Brennan spoke enthusiastically about the participation of local
people with councillors and county council officials on their
landfill monitoring group which meets nearly monthly. When asked if
the local people were funded, to enable training courses to deal with
complicated environmental issues, or even money for babysitting to
enable people to attend these meetings, he replied that ``We are not
here to discuss women and babies.''
Is this what the council's slogans of `Developing Laois in harmony
with nature' or `Forward, in Partnership with the community' come
down to?
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