A HEATED row has developed over plans by the multinational Syntex pharmaceutical company to build a £12 million waste incinerator at its factory in Clarecastle, Co Clare.
Last week, Clare County Council granted planning permission for the incinerator, which is being opposed by a large section of the community, including housewives, farmers and fishermen. The 270 workers at Syntex are supporting the incinerator.
Its opponents have collected 3,000 names on a petition against the development and some 80 families in the area have signalled their intention to move if the incinerator arrives.
The main concern is over the emission of dioxins into the atmosphere by the incineration of chlorinated solvents. At present, Syntex is sending its chemical waste to incinerators in Wales and England but it claims new EU regulations require it to instal its own on site incinerator which, it says, will reduce emissions from the plant.
Opponents of the scheme want Syntex to drop its plans and opt for one of the much safer, if more expensive, waste disposal technologies now becoming available.
"This is too big a burden to have foisted on the community of Clarecastle, particularly when you consider that Syntex is a big, wealthy company that could well afford to dispose of its waste in an acceptably safe way," says Ms Orla Ni Eili of the Care For Clare group.
Another member of the group, Ms Caroline Monahan, says that while dioxins have always been considered toxic and have been implicated as a cause of cancer, growing evidence indicates that their toxicity has been grossly under estimated.
"Many eminent scientific experts in this field hold that there is in fact no safe level of dioxin, she says."
She also claims Syntex's track record in controlling pollution in its other plants is open to question. A community group called BREATHE has been opposing some of the company's activities at its headquarters in Boulder, Colorado, where Syntex closed its on site incinerator and began sending its waste to another part of the US. According to Ms Monahan, people and animals became ill near a Syntex incinerator at Times Beach, Missouri.
Two Clarecastle fishermen, Peter Scanlon and John Considine, who seasonally net the Fergus river for salmon, have noticed a big drop in their catches over the past 12 years or so.
They blame effluent from the Syntex plant for the deterioration of salmon stocks and claim salmon fry coming downstream from the spawning beds have little chance of surviving when they pass through the area where the effluent enters the river.
More than that, plaice, sole, sea trout and shrimp, which once were plentiful in the estuarine waters of the Fergus, have disappeared, they say.
Mr Francis O'Donoghue, whose farm lies directly across the Fergus from the Syntex plant, has, for many years, been seeking explanations about unusual events.
He is convinced his land has been contaminated by substances coming from the factory. At one stage a foam like substance settled on his land and he has never been able to find out what it was.
He also says bubbles the size of footballs blew onto his land from across the river. Some of the bubbles burst on landing and he and his family collected samples of the liquids and solids that came from them.
An analysis of the substances by the Mid Western Health Board showed them to be toxic, though it was pointed out that it would require considerable repeat dosages for them to kill animals.
Mr Eamonn Enright of the Clare Liquid Milk Suppliers believes if the incinerator is built, a cattle breeding station that employs 20 people in the area will have to be moved.
Ms Patricia Moran of Women for Clare, another group opposing the incinerator, says their prime concern is for the health of the people who live in the area and their children.
She cannot understand why any development carrying a strong health risk would be allowed. All the opponents see wider implications for tourism in Clare, and for organic farming, which is taking hold in the county.
The 270 workers at Syntex, fearful for their own jobs, are supporting the incinerator. They put their names to a letter in the Clare Champion this week, saying: "It is our firm belief that this incinerator will pose no threat to the health or safety of anybody."
The workers at Syntex reject most of the arguments against the incinerator. They point out that the tightening of EU environmental regulations obliges all industries to reduce emissions and thus minimise environmental damage and claim that the incinerator will do precisely that. They even argue that in conjunction with other measures, the incinerator will reduce emissions at Syntex by as much as 97 per cent.
The employees have condemned what they term "distortions, untruths and scaremongering" being put about by the opponents of the development. They accuse them of undermining the legal authority of Clare County Council and the Environmental Protection Agency "as well as the livelihoods of all of us who work in Syntex".