A landfill site at Basketstown, near Summerhill, Co Meath, will this weekend become the first such EPA-licensed facility in the State to close its gates to new waste.
The site will be restored to pasture next year, at a cost of between £1.8 million and £2 million, but will be monitored for emissions on a continuous basis under the terms of the EPA waste management licence issued in 1999.
The closure of Basketstown by Meath County Council "brings its own problems", according to the council's environment department, but it has been welcomed by local residents who have campaigned to have it shut down.
Ms Marie Perle, secretary of the Galtrim and Laracor Residents' Association, said people had recently been complaining of ill effects and tiredness, which they blamed on emissions from the flue used to burn off gas at the site.
She said it was up to the council and the EPA to prove that the gas from the site was not the cause of these reported effects and that the onus should not be on the residents to show such evidence.
Residents were worried that the council would "fall down" on managing the site after it closed. "The management has to go on for a long time," she said.
"We are worried that, two years down the line, it will still be spewing out. Will the council, as they always do, claim insufficient funds and leave this environmental disaster on our hands?"
Mr Malachi Jenkins, director of service with the council, insists the necessary protection is in place and that the council will continue to monitor Basketstown.
The method of remediation had been fully agreed with the EPA, he said. "It will be monitored for many years under the terms of our licence, for emissions and groundwater. The EPA will tell us when, if ever, to stop. We are looking at years." The council eventually hoped to generate electricity from the gas burned off at Basketstown.
On the residents' claims that they suffer from ill health as a result of the gas emissions, he said: "We are not doctors but we have no evidence and we don't believe this to be the case."
"It's a good-news story, the fact that we're closing it, although it's creating other problems for us."
By this, he agreed, he meant that the council had to find somewhere else to bring the estimated 38,000 tonnes of domestic waste deposited at Basketstown each year.
The council had entered into a temporary agreement with a neighbouring authority to dispose of waste, he said.
Some residents living within 250 metres of the dump have in recent months been supplied with water tanks after the council deemed the water from their wells to be "unfit for human consumption".
A resident, who asked not to be named, said she received a letter from the council in March informing her of the presence of organochlorine pesticides in the water from her well.
This rendered the water unfit for human consumption or other uses involving skin contact, the letter said. The council has since supplied a water tank, which it fills twice a week.
The woman believes the contamination is directly due to the proximity of the dump.
Again, however, the council says the landfill is not responsible for the condition of the water and has informed those affected that it plans to bring a water supply from a nearby group scheme.
"This is just standard farmyard pollution you get in many agricultural areas," said Mr Jenkins.
He added that the EPA licence required the council to lay a water supply to homes nearest the site. The council is negotiating to have a water supply brought from a group scheme in Kiltale, he said.
Mr Hugh Doyle, a farmer who lives 1,000 metres from the site, disputes the theory that this is standard farmyard pollution. He and his family have been buying bottled water at a cost of about £30 a week.
The council knew "full well" the dump was the cause of the contamination, Mr Doyle claimed. "You take any unlined dump in the country and it just seems very strange that all the wells in these areas are contaminated."
The landfill site has been in existence for about 20 years, but has not for all that time been in the council's care.
A spokeswoman for the EPA said it had issued an instruction to the council in June to close the dump by December 31st because it had reached its capacity.
Asked whether the council had complied fully with the 33 pages of conditions of the EPA licence issued in 1999, she said: "Of course they are not good girls and boys all the time - they never are. It's the EPA's job to bring them back in line."
However, the reason Basketstown was closing was down to capacity and "not because of anything else", she added.