The mood changed has changed from euphoria to despondency. In September, the Minister for Defence and local TD, Mr Michael Smith, announced a £1 million grant towards a mining heritage centre on the mountainside near Silvermines in north Tipperary. But then, sketchy details emerged of a proposal to convert a flooded open-cast mine just outside the village into a massive regional landfill, less than a mile from the centre site.
When confirmation came, some 500 people from a small rural community gathered in the local hall desperate for information, incredulous that just when they were to see tangible benefits in changing from heavy industry to tourism, they were about to be blown off course.
The antagonist, as they view it, is Waste Management Ireland (WMI), a subsidiary of the world's biggest waste disposal company, the US-owned Waste Management Incorporated (WMInc). It intends putting into practice the Government's commitment to solving an Irish landfill crisis by building at a cost of £16 million one of the series of regionally-based "mega-dumps" envisaged by the State. WMI sent a brochure to every household. It was accompanied by a video outlining its plan. It became known as "the video nasty". With it came the prospect of waste from up to 12 counties being railed into a facility with a projected lifespan of 25 years.
By car, the two spots are seconds apart. The heritage centre is proposed by Shannon Development at Shallee, where once the largest lead-zinc underground mine in Europe was operated by Mogul. Planning permission is about to be sought. WMI wants to develop the disused barytes mine at Ballynoe, which has the look of a quarry and was operated by Magcobar up to five years ago. On its floor is a 50-acre lake containing 1.6 million cubic metres of toxic floodwater with a high metallic content. Their proximity suggests it would be impossible for the two facilities to coexist successfully.
The proposed heritage centre would be on a 40-acre site overlooking a valley with the main Limerick-Dublin road west of Nenagh at its floor. The "graves of the Leinster men" are on rising ground opposite, close to Lough Derg. Behind (to the south) is "Hill Country", a deep valley before Keeper Hill towers over the terrain. On its other side is Slieve Felim where Limerick local authorities plan another, albeit smaller, landfill but 1,100 feet above sea level. Within eyeshot of Silvermines there is extensive evidence of mining, too; burnt landscape caused by a filled-in 150-acre tailings pond seeded to prevent toxic dust clouds, large volumes of sub-soil material dumped indiscriminately on mountainsides, dilapidated buildings - remnants of an unforgiving industrial past.
An application submitted to Tipperary North Riding County Council to drain the lake at Ballynoe of its murky green-coloured liquid signalled WMI's intent. In the face of overwhelming opposition by councillors, a decision by the local authority on this - a prerequisite to any application to develop the site - is imminent. Labour senator Ms Kathleen O'Meara, who has been to the political forefront of local opposition, believes such a "grotesque" facility is unsuited to a community slowly regenerating itself, with "tourism the best means to giving Silvermines a sustainable future". Moreover, it runs counter to EU attempts to reduce landfill dependency, she said.
A regional landfill policy advocated by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, "absolves whole counties of the responsibility of having to look after their waste. It makes a nonsense of his declaration that `the days of landfill are over'. Our 92 per cent dependency on landfill will not be turned around by creating these kind of mega-dumps".
Nenagh Chamber of Commerce president Mr Peter Ward views the landfill as a threat to Nenagh, the nearest urban centre, five miles away, and to its surrounding region. Concern manifested itself in an attendance of some 700 people at a public meeting in the town last month. "Not only is Silvermines a visual amenity, it is part of a push to leisure industry which Shannon Development is leading."
The drainage application brings considerable risks of aquafier contamination across a large area and, ultimately, threatens the Shannon and Lough Derg, he said. "We are going to have no heavy industry here. In addition to tourism, Nenagh's future is in pharmaceuticals, food processing and information technology."
Silvermines resident and tourism executive with Shannon Development, Mr Eamon de Stafort, accepts the merits of limited landfill use but, invariably, sites are chosen for their remoteness, he said. "A hole in the ground is presenting itself. If it wasn't there, not in a million years would you use a site 600 feet above sea level. It involves simplistic disposal of bought-in waste."
He added: "People came to terms with the sweat, blood and tears of mining with its bad land usage and dereliction for hundreds of years. Then they asked, `how can we turn this around?' A tidy towns initiative led to national awards. A `super-dump' runs counter to all we have striven for. The proposal has caused great pain, unrest and despondency. That is now being converted to energy in a campaign of opposition."
A heritage centre using Shallee's unique man-made caverns was the perfect focus for Silvermines' new beginning. It would fit perfectly with Shannon Development's composite tourism marketing of amenities like Bunratty and Lough Derg and Lough Gur. The single act of eliminating 1.2 million cubic metres of toxic water would be a precarious process, Mr de Stafort claimed. WMI plans to put a series of barges on the lake to treat the liquid before discharge into Foilborig stream, which is only recovering from previous pollution.
Mrs Nuala Flynn of Silvermines Action Group (SAG) said its concern about this process centres on likely sediment disturbance in the stream which feeds into an important salmon river, the Kilmastulla, with the planned discharge of some six million gallons from the flooded mine.
SAG disputes the need for such a large facility when the local authority plans to extend Nenagh landfill, yet fears the massive waste being generated by a tiger economy is about to bombard them. "We are being hit by the Celtic tiger's tail."
The community and neighbouring parishes would stand together, she added, encouraged by the success of small communities in the US who successfully fought off WMInc. "That is driving us." A geologist living in the area, Ms Jean Archer, likens the terrain to a colander. A high limestone content and myriad of subterranean man-made channels would make such a facility "precarious in the extreme" because of the absence of an adequate, natural buffer zone. "There is the possibility of environmentally disastrous consequences."