County council staff were examining a site in north Cork yesterday to establish if water supplies might have been contaminated by an unlicensed dump. The council is preparing a prosecution under the Waste Management Act, 1996.
According to council sources, initial tests suggest that water supplies in Rockchapel have not been affected, but it will take laboratory analysis to determine whether the water table has been polluted.
It is understood that the site, on privately-owned land, was used in particular by an individual whose activities were brought to the council's attention more than a month ago.
Last Thursday, following surveillance, council staff saw a man tipping a load on to the site. A dump truck was later seized.
Under the Act a conviction on indictment carries a heavy fine or 10 years' imprisonment, or both.
The site comprises more than an acre of privately-owned land. The landowner has been interviewed.
"We carried out extensive surveillance before catching the individual involved in the act of tipping out his load.
"We are taking an extremely serious view of this," a spokesman for the council said.
The remote area, at Meetinny West, Rockchapel, is the source of the river Feale, one of the finest salmon rivers in adjoining Co Kerry.
There are several other streams in the vicinity of the dump.
Yesterday, technical staff were examining the materials dumped there to establish the nature and extent of the operation, the first of its kind in recent years in Cork.