The North Western Regional Fisheries Board says it is "monitoring" the situation at the Corrib gas field terminal site, where peat excavation has polluted the local river and tributary of Carrowmore lake.
However, the pollution had not extended farther, the board said yesterday, following reports that siltation had extended to Sruwadaccon Bay.
The board's fisheries catchment manager and two staff checked the bay from the Glenamoy river to Rossport yesterday, including inflowing streams, but there was "nothing to cause concern", a spokesman said, in spite of very heavy rainfall.
Last week, Shell E&P Ireland halted peat excavation at the terminal site at Bellanaboy in response to a warning from the fisheries board that it would consider legal action if discharges of silt into the Bellanaboy river - a tributary of Carrowmore lake - continued. The river has one of the most important angling fisheries in the region, the board says. A series of settlement ponds designed to prevent silt escaping had not functioned properly, the fisheries board said.
The multinational has been excavating an estimated 450,000 cubic metres of peat from the bog at Bellanaboy to transport it to a Bord na Móna site at Srahmore, some 11 kilometres away, as part of the onshore terminal construction project.
The multinational has engaged consultants to carry out a detailed review of the management of water quality discharged from the site. Independent Mayo TD Jerry Cowley called on Shell yesterday to "pack up and go" if it was not going to build a shallow water terminal offshore.
His constituency colleague, Michael Ring (FG), is also calling for an offshore terminal. The pollution caused by the peat had come "on the back of serious questions about the safety of the high pressure gas pipeline which is due to pipe raw gas from the field 70 kilometres off the Mayo coastline ashore", Dr Cowley said.
Minister for the Marine Noel Dempsey confirmed last week that "independent" consultants commissioned to review risk assessments of the proposed high pressure pipeline were, in fact, jointly owned by Shell and BP. Mr Dempsey has ordered a new "independent" review of the information before proceeding to grant consent for installation and commissioning of the pipeline.
Dr Cowley has been in contact with the Norwegian ambassador to Ireland, Truls Hanevol, in relation to the role of Statoil in the €900 million gas field project. Statoil and Marathon are shareholders with Shell in the field.
He is also due to hand in a letter of protest on behalf of the Shell to Sea environmental group to the Mayo county manager Des Mahon today. The group's letter says that the upstream pipeline will be in breach of the Seveso II directive - a point already raised by an An Bord Pleanála inspector who ruled against the original terminal plan in 2003.
