Writes Ciaran Dineen
More needs to be done to tackle pollution in Carrigaline according to Councillor Seamus McGrath (FF), following recent sightings of discharge by the water outfall on the Crosshaven Road.
Councillor McGrath made the call at Monday’s meeting of the Carrigaline Municipal District where he expressed frustration over the lack of action being taken to remedy the issue.
Locals in Carrigaline were outraged last week when a photo emerged on the Carrigaline Noticeboard of a thick grey substance that found itself flowing through the water by the bridge near Kilnagleary Business Park. It was noted that this certainly wasn’t the first occurrence at the location, with similar incidents happening earlier in May.
In a motion to the Council, Cllr McGrath sought a written report from the Environment Directorate to indicate how many formal complaints of pollution had been made in Carrigaline relating to the specific area and what was the outcome of those investigations. In response, Ted O’Leary, Senior Executive for the Directorate, supplied Councillors with a response to the requested motion, where he indicated that 10 complaints had been logged in Carrigaline on pollution over the past 5 years.
On each occassion it seems that a very close description of the problem was made, with many of the details observing the presence of a ‘cloudy, scummy, greyish’ solution being discharged from the pipe in question, however the source of the problem has not yet been fully identified.
Making his remarks on the report Cllr McGrath said that he would like the Council to become more vigilant in their monitoring of the site and while he acknowledged the reference of monitoring in the report he argued that given the number of complaints, the Council need to do more. He said, “I think the level of complaints show that there is an issue here and resources need to be applied to try and get to the bottom of the problem because it is causing great concern when the form of solution isn’t identified, nobody knows what it is and how potentially dangerous it is”.
Lots of other Councillors echoed these concerns amid growing frustration over the difficulty of identifying where the problem was coming from. Expressing this view the best was Councillor Aidan Lombard (FG), saying, “I can’t understand how so difficult it is to find the source. It’s not a massive drain, go back along the drain and see who’s connected to it. Am I over simplifying it? I just can’t for the life of me understand why we can’t figure it out, I mean it’s not exactly 20 miles long”.
Providing a possible solution was Councillor Liam O’Connor (FG), who queried whether the water could be sampled on a weekly basis for a period of time in order to identify what the substance was. It was agreed that the MD would write back to the Directorate with this request in an attempt to step towards a resolution.
Just minutes prior to the meeting on Monday another problem relating to pollution arose again on social media after photos of a very bad sewage leak were seen in the Owenabue River on Main Street Carrigaline. Councillor McGrath was soon made aware of the incident and subsequently stated that he would follow up with Irish Water and Cork County Council. On Tuesday evening Cllr McGrath indicated that engineers had since been on site following his enquiry and will pass on any information from their findings.
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