Work next month to end Ringsend odour

Works to eliminate the odour problem from the Ringsend sewage-treatment plant are to begin next month, Dublin City Council has said.

The council summoned the principals of the three firms responsible for the design, building and operation of the plant to a meeting in Dublin last week to agree plans to eradicate the smell.

The consortium's senior engineers will now assess every element of the sewage-treatment process before preforming what the council hopes will be the final remedial works on plant.

The €300 million plant was developed under a "design, build and operate" contract by the ABA consortium, involving Ascon, sewerage specialists Black & Veatch and Anglia Water.

The plant, which is operated by Anglia Water's subsidiary Celtic Anglia, has caused intermittent odour problems since it opened in July 2003.

It was designed to meet two main environmental standards - to produce waste water compliant with blue flag standards on nearby beaches and to operate without causing odour problems. While the waste water produced is reaching its environmental targets, the operators have failed to solve the odour problem.

The council has refused to sign over full control of the plant to Celtic Anglia until the odours have been eliminated, and last May hired a US engineering firm, CDM, to conduct an independent investigation.

The council has said it will not publish the CDM report until contractors have had an opportunity to put the programme of works in place. However, it is understood CDM did not find a definitive cause for the smell, but put forward a number of likely scenarios and solutions for analysis by the contractors' engineers.

"Each and every part of the process, from the time the sludge comes in to when it goes out, where there might be the potential for odour, will be gone though and solutions will be put forward," said Con Coll, executive manager with the council.

"There will be no quick-fix solution; if there was it would have been done far earlier.

"It wouldn't be possible to say at this stage when the problem will go away, but we feel it will be sorted out once and for all."