Runaway boulder highlights Wicklow landfill problems

An incident in which a 300lb boulder rolled down a hillside and across a main road (N11) in Co Wicklow has been described as "an accident waiting to happen because of the number of unlicensed landfill operations in the area".

Wicklow County Council says it believes that the boulder became detached from a dump on the side of the Little Sugar Loaf mountain last week on land belonging to a farmer, Ms Ann Kidman, and has initiated High Court proceedings against her. Ms Kidman has disputed this and says the boulder may have fallen off the back of a lorry on its way to another landfill site in the area.

However, members of Wicklow County Council feel that the incident has highlighted the number of unlicensed dumps in the area and a motion calling for enforcement proceedings has been tabled by a number of councillors, among them Ms Mildred Fox and Mr Dick Roche, both local TDs.

Mr Roche said that this motion was initially tabled in June and that the incident involving the boulder was "an accident waiting to happen that could have been avoided".

There are now five dumps within four miles of each other in north Wicklow.

At least three sites have been taking in up to 20 lorry-loads of rubble and soil daily, since the start of the summer. While a number of haulage contractors are involved, a high percentage of the lorries are owned by Castle Contracts of Monaghan and Northern Ireland. While these lorries bear Northern registration plates, a spokesman, Mr Barry Hughes, said that all material being dumped was from Dublin.

Confirming the incident involving the boulder, the Wicklow County Secretary, Mr Bryan Doyle, said council engineers had visited the site and were alarmed at the landfill operations on the Kidman farm. Mr Doyle said builders' rubble and soil had been deposited on the hillside and had formed a ledge which, in the engineers' opinion, was unstable.

"We assessed the danger and under our recommendation the site was made stable, which was our most urgent priority," said Mr Doyle. He also revealed that before the incident the council had lodged papers in a High Court action against Mr Tony Lawlor, who operates a dump on the side of the Great Sugar Loaf mountain, to the west of the N11 at Kilmurray. Mr Lawlor operates a concrete products business and a quarry in the area.

Mr Lawlor is currently applying to the Environmental Protection Agency for a licence to operate his dump. He said his landfill operation was "completely stable". The county secretary said that the situation was complex. "It was believed that land reclamation was exempt from planning permission and a number of sites were developed where the owners or operators were claiming that what they were doing was land reclamation.

"However, a recent High Court case over an operation in Saggart seems to have changed that. We have been trying to get the operators in Wicklow to regularise their unlicensed operation and where we have not been satisfied with their progress we have begun legal proceedings against them".