Ahern given waste plan protest

Residents of Portlaw, Co Waterford, who are opposing a waste plant which they claim will compost sewage, delivered a letter of protest to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he visited the southeast yesterday.

Advanced Environmental Solutions Ireland (AESI) is seeking permission from Waterford County Council for a composting plant on a 30 hectare site at Killowen.

AESI is backed by businessman William McCabe, whose bio-energy company, Bedminster International, recently signed a €200 million agreement to convert waste into bio-fuel in the United States.

Bedminster bio-energy technology uses a biological process to convert the waste material by way of a digesting system in less than three days, to a bio-fuel which has energy values similar to to peat or brown coal.

The planning application for the Killowen plant says it intends to build a facility for the rapid composting of 60,000 tonnes of mixed solid waste and the processing, in settling tanks, of 40,000 tonnes of mixed liquid organic waste per year.

The type and provenance of these wastes is not clearly specified in the planning application.

However, local residents under the banner of the Suir Valley Environmental Group claim the planning application, if approved would cause smells, be a traffic nuisance and would also be contrary to the regional waste management plan.

According to additional information supplied to Waterford County Council, AESI intends to process mixed waste together with municipal and other unspecified sludges at the proposed facility for an unspecified period.

Residents claim the application makes it clear that the resulting compost will not be suitable for agricultural reuse and no firm outlets have been identified for it.

"This cannot therefore be described as a recycling or reuse facility and in essence a grant of permission for such a plant would create a waste disposal facility at Killowen," the group told Mr Ahern.

The group was also critical of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) submitted with the application.

"As a tool for decision-making an EIS should list the positive and negative effects of the proposed undertaking and alternative actions/remedies. It was clear to those of us who read the EIS that it was inadequate. It contained a lot of material directly copied from the EIS submitted 10 years ago by the previous occupant of that site, a tannery."