Residents of Oranmore, Co Galway, intend to appeal a decision by the county council to approve a 124-house development on a wetland and floodplain.
The development, shop and creche have been approved for the Carrowmoneash floodplain, which serves as an outlet for almost 40 million litres of floodwater during bad weather and high tides hitting the south-eastern shore of Galway Bay.
Over 50 per cent of the 7.36 hectare floodplain is to be paved, which will result in the loss of more than 20 million litres of water storage, according to the Oranmore Community Development Association.
It believes this will result in water levels rising elsewhere, and flooding of houses in Oranmore village, a situation highlighted by planners during recent flooding on the east coast.
In correspondence on the planning file, Galway County Council admits that it has no hydrological expertise and has relied on a hydrologist employed by the developer to carry out a report with the planning application.
That report indicated that flooding would not occur, and the retention of a buffer floodplain area would have a "negligible effect on the hydrological regime".
The developer, Lackagh Group, associated with the Lackagh Quarry Group Ltd, initially intended to widen and deepen the Frenchfort river adjoining the Carrowmoneash floodplain and to create a culvert, to allow for drainage.
However, the Department of the Environment said this would have an adverse effect on wildlife in the Galway Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and the associated Frenchfort SAC inland.
Mr Ray Lavery of the Oranmore Community Development Association said the environmental impact study (EIS) submitted by the developers didn't address the impact of flooding on adjoining lands and properties if the development went ahead.
There was no flood plan in place for Oranmore generally, in spite of its low-lying location, he said, and he understood there were proposals for an additional 164 houses at Carrowmoneash, which had been zoned residential in 1996 by the local authority.
Oranmore village has become a dormitory suburb for Galway city and is projected to grow to 9,000 people in the Galway County Development Plan for 2003-2009.
However, the community development association believes the population is already approaching 8,000 at this stage. Such is the pressure to develop the area that a new secondary school has been built right next to and almost overshadowing the village's medieval castle.
Galway County Council was criticised 10 years ago for approving new housing in Gort, south Galway, which suffered extensive flooding in January 1995. A report from consultants commissioned then by the Office of Public Works found that more than half of 42 houses flooded in and around Gort in 1995 had been built since 1970, and noted that the risk of flooding might not have been adequately assessed in selecting new sites for housing.
Galway County Council is already before the European Commission for allowing unauthorised filling of wetlands which were to form part of a proposed Natura 2000 site at Oranmore.
The illegal dumping of construction waste in Carrowmore Marsh and Moneymore Fen is said to have occurred during construction of the Oranmore bypass in the early 1990s, in spite of warnings by Dúchas and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
