Eleven acres of prime dockland development land will open up next summer when initial reclamation work at the former Dublin Gas Company site, off Sir John Rogerson's Quay, is completed.

An Irish and a Belgian company are collaborating on the project, which will see about 50 per cent of the soil on the site shipped abroad for decontamination. "The site started properly six weeks back," explained Bill Glynn, project manager with the Dublin Docklands Development Authority. "We are carrying out demolition and some ground proving work at the moment."

The total site has about 22 acres and the work is being done in two phases. The first block is bounded by the quays, Forbes Street, Pearse Street and Macken Street/ Cardiff Lane. The job should be completed by June, 2001.

The broad development plan calls for a mix of commercial, residential and retail space plus a hotel and cultural centre.

"There will be quite a huge residential component to it," Mr Glynn said, with provision for about 1,200 apartments, making up about 60 per cent of the total site.

There will be no attempt to push in high rise commercial buildings, he said, adding that the general plan called for office accommodation at "a less obtrusive level, which the Dublin Docklands Authority was keen to develop anyhow".

Nonetheless, there will be a ready market for this accommodation when it becomes available, according to Ronan Webster, director of Gunne Commercial. It was difficult estimating what commercial property sited there might achieve, he said.

Dublin 1 was getting about £30 per sq ft, prime city centre about £40 and docklands generally about £35. His company is involved in a commercial block, on nearby Hanover Street, which has no river frontage and is "quoting between £27 and £28 per sq ft for it". On the other hand, The Guild House, on the north quays, was available in the "mid-£30s".

Work on the site is being carried out by Pierse Construction in collaboration with Belgian company, Soils N.V. They will leave "a completely remediated site ready for development", Mr Glynn said.

Initial demolition includes removal of all structures on site except for the old brick chimney. He knew of no plans to develop this as an observation tower, as had been done with the old Jameson distillery chimney at Smithfield.

Residents living in nearby Pearse Street and other surrounding neighbourhoods had expressed considerable concern about contaminated dust, ground water and vapours escaping from the gas company site. Mr Glynn said, however, that there would be no risk to those living close to the site. "It is not something we would undertake if there was a risk."

THE work is being conducted under strict controls established both by the Environmental Protection Agency and by Dublin Corporation, he said. The EPA had overseen and approved all of the procedures during the clean-up.

"In our proposal, we had a very significant risk assessment and proposed various ways we would carry out the excavation." The EPA had defined how the work would be done and required regular reports on progress. "They have already been on site on a number of occasions."

There is both dust and odour-monitoring around the site, he said. "It is a large works and the EPA have set criteria for dust control on the site and this is being done."

A waste-water treatment facility has been set up and the contracting companies had a licence from the corporation to discharge treated water into the sewerage system, he said.

The next step was the construction of a seven to 10 m deep underground concrete barrier wall. This was meant to prevent the movement of groundwater into or off the site and the corporation had demanded additional monitoring outside the retaining wall to ensure that nothing escaped.

Once the wall is in place, a systematic removal of soil would be undertaken, Mr Glynn explained. The entire site was being marked off in one metre grids and there will be extensive soil sampling from each grid square to determine what chemicals are in the soil on a metre-by-metre basis.

"As we do that we will know how the soil has to be treated," he said. Soil will be cleared down a metre at a time, and "soil sampling before and after is done so you have a complete picture of the soil constituents right through the life of the excavation". The site is contaminated with the chemical residues of almost two centuries of gas manufacture.

How deep the excavation goes will depend on what is found during the soil sampling, Mr Glynn said. Earlier bore holes gave some impression of depth, but the soil sampling will dictate how far they have to go.

"There may be some hot spots beneath that and we may go two or three metres deeper to clear them. A high percentage of the soil, perhaps 50 per cent or more, will be exported by ship for treatment in Holland," he explains.

A heating process will be used to burn off dangerous organic chemicals leaving behind a mix of soil and safe residue which would be used for road construction across Europe.

SOME soil would be treated here by washing and would then be used for backfill on site, but there would also be a final metre-deep "capping layer" laid down to provide a clean surface for contracting companies when construction would begin.

Phase 1 is scheduled for completion by June 2001 and Phase 2 to complete the remediation would begin later next summer he said. The job would be completed 10 to 11 months after that.