Sir, To add to the letters appearing on the above subject I would like to say that Sandymount Strand at Merrion Gates is an environmental hazard. All residents on Strand Road and motorists waiting at the Gates can notice strong sewage smells emanating from the fore shore. Phone calls of complaint to the Dublin Corporation Main Drainage section are transferred to the Ringsend office. The Ringsend engineers maintain that decaying algal matter is the source of these terrible smells. However this explanation is totally inadequate.
The algae live on the surface of the sea as a thin layer for tens of miles and are often washed on to the foreshore as a green back mass at Merrion Gates, particularly after a spring tide. The algal matter at Strand Road is extremely thick (10 cm) and contains many items consistent with sewage matter such as sanitary towels, condoms and unidentifiable pulp. It can lie on the sand for weeks and slowly decay until another spring tide disturbs the mess.
Thick algal growth would be unusual in the temperate waters of the Irish Sea unless there is a nutrient rich source. This source must be Dublin's sewage which is discharged raw at Howth Head or as sludge by ship 13 miles into Dublin bay. The Ringsend engineers deny that there are any such sewage products in the algal deposits and suggest that any foreign matter is sourced from the surface water drains that discharge north of Booterstown DART Station. I am wondering what to do with some of the fetid matter with several unmentionables which I have collected in a large black bin liner send the package to the Corporation's laboratory or directly to landfill? I don't think An Post would deliver such a contaminated package.
Instead of entertaining our EU Commission guests in Kitty O'Shea's or the new Dail bar, Dublin Corporation could show the Commissioners a new type of manure being applied to Sandymount Strand over afternoon tea at my house with the windows tightly shut. Yours, etc., (Hydrogeology) 18B Strand Road, Sandymount, Dublin 4.