A Connacht water protection group has called for the immediate digging up of at least 2,000 cattle carcasses buried close to Lough Mask. This must be done unless assurances can be given that none of the animals died from BSE or threatens drinking water quality in Co Mayo, it said yesterday.
Lough Mask is the source of drinking water for half the population of Co Mayo, and the Carra Mask Corrib Water Protection Group is concerned that if some of the animals died of BSE they could be "leaching untold poisons" into the lake. Areas supplied with water from the lake include Castlebar, Claremorris and Ballinrobe.
Mr Tony Waldron, adviser to the group, said planning permission for the burial of the animals by a knackery at Cloonliffen, Ballinrobe, had been granted by Mayo County Council in 1991.
Before the county council granted permission, the Western Health Board, in correspondence with the local authority, expressed "grave reservations" about giving permission, noting that "disposal by burial is unacceptable in this area as the entire area drains eventually by agricultural drains, streams and otherwise to Lough Mask".
The council's own sanitary and environment section said the knackery had already caused "localised pollution" before planning permission was granted. Permission was subsequently overturned in July 1992 on appeal by a number of parties to An Bord Pleanala.
Dead and worn-out animals were sourced around the State and taken to the knackery, which was no longer in operation, Mr Waldron said. They were skinned and their hides sold on for leather manufacture. Their remains were buried on site in shallow pits and, Mr Waldron claims, they were likely to threaten water quality for years to come.
The European Commission opened a file on the knackery in response to a complaint in the early 1990s. Mr Waldron has now written again to the Environment Directorate General asking for the file to be reactivated and for assistance in securing the assurances his group is demanding. "Both the secretary and manager of Mayo County Council have failed to respond to registered letters outlining our concerns, and asking specific questions regarding the issue," Mr Waldron said.
"Because of increasing concerns over the whole BSE issue, in particular the burial of infected animals, we now have to be fully assured by Mayo County Council that none such are buried at the site in question. If this assurance cannot be supplied, the health implications for all those using Lough Mask as a source of drinking water supply remain unknown.
"We have no option at this stage but to demand the complete uplifting and safe removal of all illegally buried offal and carcasses, and an inquiry into the granting of permission in the first instance by the authority." The Mayo county secretary, Mr Padraig Hughes, said the council continuously monitored the source of all drinking waters and Lough Mask drinking water was perfect. The letters received from Mr Waldron would be replied to but the county council could not give assurances on the animals buried as it did not authorise, supervise or have responsibility for their burial. As the permission was the subject of a successful appeal, the scheme was never officially sanctioned.
Meanwhile the Labour TD, Mr Emmet Stagg, has written to the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, asking if he is satisfied the burial of BSE-infected cattle causes no threat to surface and ground water supplies, if he is aware of the burial of large numbers of dead cattle at Cloonliffin and if he has established whether any of these cattle died from BSE.
This week the EU Agriculture Commissioner, Dr Franz Fischler, expressed concern it may be possible to transmit BSE via water.