Council admits mistake on sewage disposal

Wexford County Council will meet this afternoon amid growing concern about the frequency of untreated sewage being spread on agricultural land in the county.

Dublin City Council has admitted that in a "once-off mistake" it caused up to 150 tonnes (165 tons) of improperly treated human sewage to be dumped on lands at Ballygarrett, east of Gorey in the last month.

However, The Irish Timeshas learnt of two other such incidents in Co Wexford.

Last April Wexford County Council spread sewage sludge on land at Wellington Bridge. This gave rise to local anger over noxious odours and led to protest meetings in the village.

The council said yesterday that it was a "normal regulated activity" carried out according to strict EU regulations and the sewage had in fact been treated. But local councillors, including John Dwyer (SF), insisted yesterday that senior council staff were on the record as having apologised at a council meeting for the incident.

Another member of the council, Lisa McDonald, said she had represented locals in Monamolin in the north of the county after sewage was spread there. Again, locals complained about smell and nuisance and public meetings were held. In this case the council conducted tests but refused requests from locals for copies of the subsequent report.

But a council report into the spreading of untreated sewage from Dublin City Council's Ringsend plant on land near Peppards Castle, at Ballygarrett, has revealed toxic components.

According to the report, the level of E.coli bacteria was 15 times above the regulatory level, while faecal coliforms were 27 times the legal limit.

Farmers were advised not to allow cattle on to the land for at least 40 hours because of the danger of cross-contamination.

But Dublin City Council engineer Michael Phillips said that the incident represented "no risk to anyone". He said human error in the Ringsend plant had resulted in "some" contamination. "The result was the downgrading of our class A product to a class B product, but in actual fact there was no specific risk to anyone".

He added that the council wanted to apologise "as the smell was very bad".

Ms McDonald said she would table a motion at a meeting of Wexford County Council proposing that the local authority take immediate legal action against Dublin City Council.

She also said Wexford County Council should have a sludge register available to the public "as deemed necessary by Statutory Instrument 148 of 1998".