EPA to consider Meath waste facility

The Environmental Protection Agency oral hearing into a municipal incinerator proposed for Carranstown, Co Meath, is to take place on March 7th.

The €85 million incinerator, proposed by Indaver Ireland, is designed to handle 150,000 tonnes of non-hazardous waste each year.

In order for any such project to go ahead, the applicant company must get a waste management licence from the EPA in addition to planning permission.

Indaver Ireland was granted planning permission for the facility by Meath County Council, and this was upheld by An Bord Pleanála. In a subsequent judicial review the High Court also found in favour of the development.

The Supreme Court will consider arguments on April 25th.

The company received a draft waste management licence from the EPA last October.

This provides for the oral hearing which the EPA yesterday confirmed will be held on March 7th in the Boyne Valley Hotel and Country Club, Stameen, Drogheda, Co Louth.

The hearing will consider only environmental arguments for and against the project.

A similar oral hearing into Indaver Ireland's application for a waste management licence for the State's first toxic-waste facility will be held by the EPA in Cork on February 14th.

The proposed €75 million Ringaskiddy plant is designed to handle about 100,000 tonnes of hazardous and non-hazardous industrial and commercial waste each year.

However, last month the High Court granted leave to the Ringaskiddy and District Residents' Association Ltd, and several local people, to bring a judicial review challenge to the proposed development.

A date for this hearing has not been set.

Indaver Ireland announced plans for the Ringaskiddy incinerator in April 2001.

The Carranstown proposal was announced in November 2000, the company having begun site selection in 1999. It says it has spent more than €12 million on the Cork and Meath projects in the intervening period.

Last night Indaver Ireland said it was important that the public and authorised bodies could have a full and proper debate at every stage of the process.

A spokeswoman said, however, that the dates for the hearings, February 14th for Cork and March 7th for Meath, were somewhat close together.

The Bord Pleanála hearing for the Cork facility lasted three weeks.