River Vartry Protection Society

Environmental Issues from Irish Water Planning Permission for Roundwood Treatment Works

It has been a long time since there has been a need for the River Vartry Protection Society to meet together as there has not been such a situation as we have now that threatens our River Varty like this. At this point there is a planning application that needs answering by the 12th of May and has me very frightened as to what might happen to the river.

We are having a meeting in the Ashford Community Hall at 8:00 pm on Tuesday 26th which will be attended by the River Vartry Protection Society (hopefully most of the Riparian Owners will be present), the Vartry Angling and Conservation Club, and the Friends of the Murrough primarily. There will be members of the public as well, I presume. If you know someone that should be there, perhaps living along the river, please pass this information along to them.

We have many issues with this planning application 16363 in the name of Irish Water for Strategic Infrastructure costing 250 Million, as we believe it must have an Environment Impact Study and should really be in the hands of An Bord Pleanala since it crosses both Wicklow Council and Dublin Corp.

The main issues are:

Irish Water believe they do not need a EIA because the Murrough is 9 KM away, only linked by the River Vartry. (They ignore the polution they WILL cause to the River Vartry (they admit to this in their application).
1- They are stopping all leaks from the current works which supplies 4 Million Litres a day to the river.
2- They want to increase the damaging discharge from 1700 m3 per day to 4000 m3 per day and 4 locations into the River rather than currently 2.
3- The discharge will be worse than it was before with more contaminants due to more efficient cleaning than before.
4- Their consultant quotes “The discharge comprises 35% of the daily flow (as it is today) of the River Vartry at the discharge location. Therefore a potential localised impact on the water quality within the River Vartry at this site is anticipated. This impact could be measurable up to the point of the next significant inflow to the River Vartry approximately 300m downstream from the discharge. However…” They think the river has anough assimilative capacity to absorb their pollution. The inflow they talk of has negligible water added to the river in the dry season.
5- I don’t believe that this is even accurate as they intend to have 0% loss of water to the river, so the 35% will be more like 100% when they stop the leaks.
6- They state that it is an EU protected river, but completely ignore it in all their assessments as to impact they will cause.
7- They quote 2008 figures for fish and don’t admit to the fact that it is one of the better rivers in Ireland and very very important.

The Murrough may be affected by silt and potential spills from the construction (they say) and could be subject to oil or other spillages but they will TRY to mitigate this. There is no authority inspecting or supervising that they will actually mitigate this happening and their procedures 100% bullet proof.

I will have the draft objection circulated before the meeting.

It would be nice if you could make it. Tea and Cake and good company as well.