Dredging halted as complaints about wintering birds upheld

The High Court has upheld complaints by coast-watch campaigner Ms Karin Dubsky about work aimed at creating an alternative feeding ground for wintering birds on the River Boyne estuary.

Mr Justice O'Sullivan yesterday ordered work to stop until Drogheda Port Company adhered to conditions he set last September. He noted reservations had been expressed by ornithological experts about the method for providing alternative feeding grounds - the removal of acres of spartina grass.

His impression was that this method of compensating the loss of feeding grounds to the birds as a result of dredging works at the estuary "has not worked very well".

The work to create the compensatory feeding grounds is stopped until Friday when the matter returns before the court.

It may resume once the port company has agreed with Duchas, the national parks and wildlife service, a map setting out the boundaries of the 10-hectare site from which spartina is being eradicated.

The company is also required to set out a reasonable time frame within which the alternative site will become available and to comply with all the conditions for work on the site.

The Drogheda Port Company has accepted it is obliged to create the compensatory grounds in connection with its dredging scheme for the Boyne estuary. It involved the dumping of large amounts of spoil on the Stagreenan polder on the south bank of the river, which had been a feeding ground for wintering birds.

When applying for a foreshore licence, the company indicated in an accompanying environmental impact statement that it would ameliorate the environmental damage done to the Stagreenan polder by providing an alternative feeding ground on the north polder by removing 10 hectares of spartina-infested foreshore.

In a reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice O'Sullivan upheld a number of complaints by Ms Dubsky, co-ordinator of Coastwatch Ireland, about the manner in which those grounds were being provided.

However, the breaches, when viewed in the context of damage to the environment, appeared to him to be more technical than substantial.

While the breaches had affected the environment, the impact was not grossly disproportion ate to the inevitable impact which the work was going to have even if it fully adhered to his order of September 10th and the methodology for the work set out in the EIS.

The judge said any underachievement of food supply for the birds was not due to failure to comply with the court order and the EIS but was more due to the limitations of the philosophy underlying the EIS, in the view of ornithological experts.

A zoologist had said samples from the alternative site indicated the biomass (food) for birds available there was just one-tenth of what he would expect. However, a marine consultant who supervised the work of spartina removal produced results showing higher numbers of food items available for the birds.

Mr Justice O'Sullivan said the zoologist's explanation that biomass was the critical determinant in assessing food availability seemed to make sense. It was his view there was a low or reduced amount of biomass in the alternative site.