Back to school - Village Magazine

March 2015 69

CIVICS ENVIRONMENT

HE environment is the enemy of

jobs”. That’s what my lad recently

reported was the universal belief of

all those in his Leaving Cert ‘Civic, Social

and Political Education’ (CSPE) class in

our west cork community school. To be

honest, it’s what most people think in

modern Ireland. To object to develop-

ments in rural Ireland is a swift route to

social ostracisation – or worse.

But if we don’t protect the environ-

ment our dwindling natural resources

will be used foolishly and the ultimate

cost of cleaning up will one day be too

great – or too late – to pay. Yet Dan and

his school mates are no diﬀerent from

the current revisers of Directives in

Brussels or the Kerry Councillors with

their Material Contravention motions to

overrule planning protection.

Environmental regulation is under

unceasing attack at every level. The buzz

word is ‘light regulation’. Light regula-

tion? Isn’t that an oxymoron, a paradox,

like ‘open secret’?

We rely on the environment for life

itself. It’s just that the connections can

be hard to see. Let’s look at what happens

with – say – industrial peat extraction

and public health.

In  the group I work with received

an anonymous letter from a hotmail

account. It was a detailed missive with

photographs demonstrating the devas-

tation of hundreds of hectares of raised

bogs in Westmeath by large industrial

operators. We found no planning author-

ities had any record of these activities.

We spent five years pursuing the

authorities to require them to assess the

activities and protect the environment.

We ﬁled a Petition to the European Par-

liament. We went through the planning

process all the way to the High Court

where even now three cases await ﬁnal

determination. We commissioned a sat-

ellite survey of exposed peat-lands from

University College Cork and presented

the Department of the Environment with

detailed maps of  extraction sites of

more than  hectares across  local

authorities, the vast majority of which

their subsequent site visit reports con-

ﬁrmed required planning permission.

Why does this matter? Is it the quix-

otic defence of a rare bog orchid? Well

partly: fragile ‘biodiversity’ matters; and

bogs are a signiﬁcant carbon store also.

It matters also because the drainage of

peat – and forestry and land reclama-

tion on peaty soils – releases organic

carbon into the water – the ‘peaty

colour’ you sometimes see. When this

water is treated with chlorine, THMs

[Trihalomethanes – a group of chemi-

cals like chloroform that are associated

with cancer] are formed.

According to the EPA’s Quality of

Drinking Water in Ireland we analysed

for our complaint, almost ,

consumers in  water supply zones

are currently receiving drinking water

exceeding the European Union / World

Health Organisations’ parametric limit

for THMs.

And nobody has told the consumers,

even though the law says they must be

informed. The Directive and the Irish

Regulations say that: “In such cases

consumers shall be informed promptly

thereof and given the necessary advice”.

THMs are volatile – prolonged show-

ering, jacuzzis, steam rooms become

dangerous, pregnant women may be at

greater risk, etc.

Ireland’s defence to the EU’s investiga-

tion was assembled by the Environmental

Protection Agency and the Health and

Safety Authority. “The public should be

reassured that all exceedences of the

standards are examined to determine

if there is a potential danger to human

health”, the joint document said. It con-

cluded that there is ‘not enough evidence

to prove that THMs pose a health risk in

the short term.’

Carcinogens by their nature are not

“immediate” risks. Cigarette smoking,

exposure to asbestos – these are not

immediate risks either.

They have to deny any public health

risk because the Commissioner for

Energy Regulation [who also regulates

water] is committed to giving a %

discount for consumers receiving water

unsafe for human consumption. And a

% discount to , consumers

would end water charges more quickly

than any marches on the Dáil.

Meanwhile, the public will continue to

drink potentially dangerous water that

could be made safe – if they knew – by a

simple charcoal ﬁlter.

The eight or nine ‘mini Bord na Mónas’

who are doing the extraction – most

of them registered outside the state –

have been lobbying the Government

(‘from high up’) over the loss of jobs

that potential controls could mean. The

booming mushroom industry – which

is now almost half of all Irish horticul-

tural products – relies on peat to grow its

crop. Our competitive advantages will be

lost, they say: , jobs will be at risk.

Hence the Minister is told regulation is a

‘threat to national food security’.

He has been told that peat should be

removed from planning controls alto-

gether and subject instead to – you

guessed it – “light regulation”.

If we want a more progressive Ireland

we’ll have to go back to school. •

Tony Lowes is one of the founders

and a Director of Friends of the Irish

Environment, an environmental lobby

group established in 1997 to ensure the

implementation of European

environmental law.

There is no other way to change our approach

to the environment. By Tony Lowes

Back to school

EPA and HSA

deny public

health risk

from THMs

because CRE

is committed

to a 100%

discount for

consumers

receiving

unsafe water.

600,000

100%

discounts

would end

water charges

“