The narrow hedge-lined road leading from the Co Wexford holiday village of Blackwater to its nearby beach has become an unremitting nightmare for its residents. All day long from early morning - and, up to recently, late into the night - heavy trucks and massive dumpers rumble back and forward along this rural side-road in the district known as Ballyconnigar Lower.
The source of this intensive industrial traffic is the operation of five large sandpits in a half-mile area. As the country's construction boom continues, the pits are working flat-out and thousands of tons of sand - and at times topsoil - are being shifted daily.
The impact on the local environment is plainly evident. There is the recurrent noise of empty and laden trucks; frequent traffic congestion; and the churning up of road margins, which are also liberally layered with spilled sand.
The Blackwater Residents Association claims that only two of the sandpits have planning permission for their operations. The association has written to Wexford County Council about the environmental impact, alleging that the removal of vegetation and bushes, and the exposure of large areas of land to the north and north-east wind, are making the landscape into "a desert".
The association wrote: "This sand is blowing onto the roadway and the adjoining houses, and accumulating on the turns of the road, making it most dangerous to cyclists and pedestrians and other road users, and also changing the geological line of the land that sheltered the homes for years."
The home of Mrs Helen Curran, a widow and resident for more than 30 years, flanks the road closely at one of its narrowest bends. She says: "The lorries can't pass a car at my place. You can't get a wink of sleep all day Saturday.
"On a dry day, it would kill you with sand blowing around. My gutters get jammed up. One of these mornings I'll have a truck in the bedroom."
Mr Larry Connolly, of the residents' association, has gathered 440 signatures to a petition sent to the county council concerning the situation. He says that 20 years ago just two pits were open and only five or six small lorries drew sand from them each day.
A recent count by the residents showed that this number has increased to between 70 and 80 a day. The modern trucks are much heavier, and the camber of the road is being affected, he claimed.
A number of Dublin people have moved to the area and built houses on the road in the past decade. One of them, Mr John Kelly, said that the sand "comes in the vents in your house and down your chimneys." Another Dubliner, Mr Christy O'Reilly, commented: "It was a beautiful place, with flowers everywhere. Now the wildlife is gone."
More than 250 holiday mobile homes have been sited in the area, and holidaymakers use the beach road for access to the seashore. But Mr Connolly remarks: "They can't walk now, with the lorries. It is deadly for old people and children on the road."
At a recent meeting the residents called for measures to alleviate the problems. They want the road to be assessed and repaired, and sand spillages regularly cleaned up. They want regulations prohibiting the overloading of the lorries to be rigorously enforced, and laden lorries to be covered in dry weather.
They ask that those pits which legitimately remain open should adhere strictly to the planning conditions imposed on them, such as daytime operations only, on weekdays only. They are also concerned that topsoil appears to have been removed from some sites, contrary to regulations requiring it to be preserved so that the sites can be covered by soil again when sand excavation ends.
A Wexford County Council planning officer confirmed to The Irish Times that the council was concerned about the level of activity at the sandpits, and about the impact it would have on the area generally.
Council planners are considering a draft report by outside consultants on the general situation and what policies should be adopted in the future.
The council also admitted to concern "that some of the activities might be going on without full planning permission" and this is under investigation.
A council official said they had had a number of meetings with local residents about the complaints. "We are trying to find a balance between the exploitation of the resource there and the protection and preservation of the amenities," he said.
The residents, however, remain concerned that serious damage continues to be done every day while the council goes through its detailed procedures. They want more urgent action, and have threatened to organise their own public inquiry.
The little village of Blackwater, a consistent Tidy Towns winner, appears to be enduring multiple pressures. There is a serious coastal erosion problem along its adjacent shoreline. A month ago the village was inundated by floods which caused substantial damage when its river overflowed. Then for a week there was a water pollution scare and fresh water supplies had to be brought in by tanker.
The critics of the sandpit operations are suspicious that some of these problems may have been related to the ongoing massive excavations, and they are understandably impatient that all the technical evidence gathered by the council should be made public, and that urgent action should now be undertaken.