Gardaí have began an investigation into suspected illegal dumping including examining a pond containing what appears to be hazardous sludge linked to diesel laundering.
This morning a team of gardaí moved on the site, which runs to 140 acres, and is close to the water treatment plant that serves Dundalk town.
However a spokesman for Louth County Council said “we want to allay any fears of a threat to the water supply to Dundalk, the water abstraction for the treatment plant is at a higher point and there is no threat of any kind to the supply.”
The council environmental staff walked over the site today and confirmed that water which had ponded or gathered at the bottom of a disused quarry appeared to contain the sludge from diesel laundering.
In all the council has identified 6 different locations on the site where there is evidence of diesel sludge having been dumped. Specifically it is trying to find out if barrels of the toxic residue could have been buried under ground.
The site is at Cavanhill near Dundalk and is accessed from a track off a narrow country lane and is shielded from the public road by trees.
Diesel laundering has become a regular activity along the border and local authorities are used to finding end of life lorries and trucks that have abandoned on the roadside and inside them they will find 1k litre containers of the corrosive residue.
It has to be sent abroad for proper treatment and disposal at a hazardous waste facility with the taxpayer footing the bill.
Diesel laundering gangs make thousands of euro a year by using chemicals to remove colouring dye from cheaper diesel and passing it off as more expensive auto-diesel. The loss to the exchequer runs to millions of euro every year.
Louth county council confirmed that it has retained environmental consultants to advise it in assessing the site. As part of that it is boring trial holes and taking samples of the soil and water to test.
There is also an amount of tyres and what appears to be construction and demolition waste on the land as well as some scrapped cars.
A spokesman for the gardaí in Dundalk confirmed the site was a crime scene.
The council is also expected to liaise with the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
The multi-agency approach was welcomed by county councillor Thomas Sharkey of Sinn Féin who has raised the issue of illegal dumping with the council on a frequent basis.
“This is environmental terrorism. This action by the agencies involved is a clear message to those who dump that they will face action,” he said.
The council's director of services Des Foley said, “this is very much an ongoing operation and is part of a live investigation that we have been involved with for some time. When we complete our work on the site we will await the results from laboratories of various sample tests and analyses.”
“At that stage we may move towards a prosecution but any decisions in that regard are for another day and it would be premature to comment any further,” he added.
The cost of cleaning up the site is unknown but could run to several hundreds of thousands of euro.
The council and gardai are expected to be on site tomorrow as they continue their investigations.