The most remarkable feature of the controversial landfill site at Arthurstown, near Kill, Co Kildare, is the absence of seagulls swirling around the tiphead. And the reason is simple: South Dublin County Council pays a company called Dayhawk Ltd £40,000 a year to fly falcons at the site to keep the nuisances away.
The Arthurstown landfill, which accepted its first bale of municipal waste last October, is a highly impressive operation in every way. To date, nothing like it has been seen anywhere in the Republic. Indeed, its like is seen in few places in Europe. It is as far away from the horrors of Dunsink as is possible to get.
Yet the "Kill dump" has been dogged by controversy since it was first mooted in 1991. Planning permission was refused by Kildare County Council - ironically, under the name of its then county manager, Mr Frank Kavanagh, who is now more than content to preside over its operation as South Dublin county manager.
Later, it was the subject of the longest oral hearing ever held by An Bord Pleanala. And after the appeals board granted permission in 1994, a local action group and others challenged the legality of this decision in the High Court under judicial review proceedings. The case goes to for Supreme Court judgment early next month.
On a tour of the Arthurstown site yesterday, organised by South Dublin County Council, one could only wonder what all the fuss was about. The site has been developed to the highest environmental standards - even higher, it is claimed, than the EU Landfill Directive - and is being operated in a very professional manner.
Before accepting any waste, the county council spent £2.3 million on engineered remedial measures to isolate and contain the residue of illegal toxic waste dumping on the site to ensure there would be no groundwater contamination. This involved setting a deep concrete wall around it, nearly a kilometre in circumference.
The first phase of the new landfill, developed at a cost of £6 million, involved creating a fully lined cell to accept baled municipal waste - the only form that the site may deal with under the terms of its planning permission. The double lining includes impermeable polyethelene sheeting to prevent groundwater contamination.
All waste destined for disposal in Arthurstown is compressed into two-tonne bales at a highly automated baling station at Ballymount, near Tallaght, which looks like just another factory - even if its "product" is quite unusual. This is run by Ipodec Ireland Ltd, a subsidiary of the French company, Generale des Eaux.
The £8 million Ballymount facility can process 60 tonnes of waste per hour, with a new bale every 60 seconds. The bales are automatically fed into 24-tonne sealed containers and brought to Arthurstown via the Naas dual-carriageway and two minor roads which are being upgraded to cater for this traffic.
The landfill site is being run as a joint venture with Ipodec Ireland on behalf of the four Dublin local authorities. Because of the high environmental standards and the need to pre-bale, it is an expensive operation, with an annual cost of £29 per tonne compared to just £6 per tonne for a more typical municipal dump.
Formerly a Roadstone quarry with a scarred "lunar landscape" (as the county engineer, Mr Frank Coffey, described it) the site has a capacity of four million cubic metres with a "design lifespan" of 10 years. Unfortunately, the planning permission runs out in 2004 - and three years were lost due to the legal contention.
Mr Coffey conceded there was still much bad feeling locally about the use of the site for waste disposal. "The action group prefers to picket us than talk to us", he said. "But some residents have told us privately that they're quite happy about the way it's being run." Fears have not been borne out, he said.
Mr Flor Mahony, Ipodec Ireland's managing director, said his parent group, which operates many waste disposal facilities in Europe, was so impressed by the Arthurstown site - particularly the use of falcons to deal with the bird problem associated with landfill - that it is planning to follow the example set by South Dublin.
The county council cathaoirleach, Mr Eamonn Walsh, paid tribute to everyone involved on what he described as "a job well done". Some of his colleagues on the council, who were also on yesterday's tour, were equally impressed and returned to Tallaght feeling quite chuffed about what they had seen across the county line.