Oral hearing next month on controversial sawmills

Bord Pleanála is to hold a two day oral hearing next month into an application for retention of a controversial sawmills in the Aghancon Valley, Co Offaly.

The sawmills, T&J Standish Sawmills (Roscrea) Limited, has been operating without planning permission for a number of years and has been served with several pollution control warning notices by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA has in the past detected the presence of the chemical Chromium VI in local watercourses. Chromium VI, a lethal carcinogenic, is present in wood preservatives.

Further tests carried out by T&J Standish's own consultants also recorded the presence of Chromium in local wells which supply drinking water to a number of farms - among them the family farm of the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Tom Parlon. However subsequent tests carried out by the EPA did not record similar findings.

Members of the Aghancon Concerned Residents' Association have now compiled a 73 point chronology of events which they say details the building of the sawmills.

The chronology details a litany of complaints made by local residents to Offaly County Council about the operation of the sawmills.

It also includes a chronology of complaints to the EPA, following the granting of an integrated pollution control licence for the sawmills in 1998.

The county council have said they do not have any records of correspondence between the Standish family business and the council.

"It means that the council did not write to the Standish family, relating to any of the complaints that we have made regarding noise, environmental pollution, complaints of nuisance, and traffic problems," said a spokesman for the residents.

The residents were also disappointed the council approved the application for retention last December, without having first asked for an Environmental Impact Assessment. The council was closed yesterday and a spokesman was not available. The Bord Pleanála hearing will take place in the Courthouse, Tullamore on May 14th and 15th.