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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
64 July 2021
Limerick environmentalists
mull legal challenge
CRH subsidiary gets permission to burn tyres in residential area
By Angus Mitchell
I
N MAY the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) granted a conditional incineration licence
to Irish Cement Limerick (ICL) for its cement plant
at Castlemungret, an area surrounded by homes,
sports fields and other community facilities.
The company plans to end its practice of burning
fossil fuels and switch to burning up to 90,000 tonnes
annually of alternative fuels such as used tyres and
solid waste (though it was pulled back from plans to
burn “animal faeces, urine, manure and spoiled
straw).
The decision was no surprise. Since the application
was made, the EPA has held the hand of the CRH-
owned company. The EPA’s director general, Laura
Burke, recruited when she was a project manager
from incineration conglomerate Indaver back in 2003,
has never wavered from her professional belief that
Ireland can burn its way out of climate catastrophe.
The next step may be a High Court challenge
spawned by some of the issues that arose during the
December 2020 oral hearing and from the decision
itself.
Since ICL announced its intention to switch from
pet-coke to co-incineration in its cement production,
it has been met by fierce resistance from local envi
-
ronmental campaign group Limerick Against Pollution
(LAP). Back in October 2019, over 5000 citizens
turned out to protest against the granting of the
licence.
From day one, ICL’s defence changed little from its
line at the An Bord Pleanála hearing back in August
2017. But the experience of that first oral hearing
meant that their opponents were better prepared for
round two.
ICL’s long track record of getting it wrong meant
that there was no shortage of evidence of operational
failures and sustained environmental abuse.
Drawing attention to the prevalence of respiratory
ill-health in the mid-west, Dr Roisin Cahalan, a senior
cardiovascular lecturer at UL, cited the increasing
body of peer-reviewed research on health risks and
impacts from exposure to emissions from co-inciner
-
ation located near large populations.
Environmental consultant, Jack O’Sullivan, speak
-
ing on behalf of LAP, challenged the arguments made
by Irish Cement that its switch of fuels would credibly
reduce carbon emissions. He demonstrated how its
Health Risk Assessment was based on out-dated
research. ICL’s communications director, Brian Gil
-
more’s claim that co-incineration was environmentally
progressive was carefully deconstructed and shown
up as demonstrably false.
Limerick solicitor Michelle Hayes of Environmental
ENVIRONMENT
Irish Cement, Cstlemungret: will burn tyres
July 2021 65
The toxic Wild Atlantic Way(ste) of the
Shannon estuary runs between Moneypoint,
the red mud ponds at Aughinish and the ICL
co-incineration plant.
Trust Ireland challenged the history of derogations
permitted by the EPA and the health risks from exist-
ing background levels of hexavalent chromium and
sulphur dioxide. She concluded that the EPA would
be acting ultra vires – illegally outside the powers
aorded it – by issuing the licence under these
circumstances.
Michael O’Donnell BL representing local philan-
thropist, Sue-Ann Foley, began his cross-examination
by asking environmental consultant Dr Imelda Shana-
han to read her 36-page report for the objectors into
the record. Shanahan highlighted out-dated forms of
modelling and an unreliable health risk
assessment.
Shanahan verified that both the Enviromental
Impact Statement and Natura Impact Statement were
based on invalid data and erroneous calculations.
Shanahan’s observations formed the basis for
O’Donnell’s extensive cross examination of ICL’s
Seamus Breen, the ecologist Matthew Hague, and Dr
Martin Hogan. O’Donnell revealed that the recent
rash of “incidents and events” from the plant, lead-
ing to two successful prosecutions of ICL for
non-compliance in 2018, demonstrated that safety at
ICL had not improved over time..
O’Donnell proceeded to interrogate ICL’s head of
quality and sustainability, Seamus Breen. This led to
the admission by Breen that ICL land-filled over 3,000
tonnes of hazardous materials and asbestos just
metres away from a Special Protection Area. This stor
-
age, according to Breen, was based on an ‘”informal
agreement” with the EPA.
Bunlicky pond is not the only hazardous area to
have suered abuse. Inspection of an old quarry in
Ballyneety in County Limerick, owned by Roadstone,
has exposed further environmental delinquency on
the part of CRH.
The five-year campaign by LAP has exposed at
every turn the lack of due diligence in the planning
and licensing process. Failure to apply the precaution-
ary principal is compounded by the dearth of any HSE
data to establish a health risk register, propped up by
a court system incapable of applying proportional
fines for operational failure when they occur.
Limerick’s on-going ambitions to become a smart
city, with promises to double in size by 2040, seem
destined to fall short. New schools, creches and
housing estates are billowing up in the shadow of the
stack. The slow violence against the environment and
community well-being is part of a region-wide toxic
ecosystem defining the Wild Atlantic Way(ste) of the
Shannon estuary running between Moneypoint, the
red mud ponds at Aughinish and the ICL co-incinera
-
tion plant.
But air quality regulation and environmental law is
a fast-moving field. Irrespective of any Irish judicial
review process this may well end up in the European
Courts where the Human Biomonitoring Initiative for
Europe (HBM4EU) is providing a new platform to pro
-
tect the health of EU citizens from exposure to
chemical emissions from big polluters.
Incinertion : Not for the children nd grndchildren
