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Work will commence shortly to help make safe
a toxic dump in Cork harbour.
Minister Simon Coveney confirmed to the Irish
Examiner that Cork County Council staff will shortly move
on to the site at Haulbowline island.
It is envisaged the local authority will construct
retaining walls around the dump to prevent material seeping
into the harbour during high tides.
The authorities are liaising closely with the
European Commission which has put significant pressure on
the Government to clean up the site - "and rightly so", according
to the minister.
Mr Coveney recently managed to secure €40 million
from the Cabinet for a 2-year clean-up project. He said the
European Commission had advised the Government to model its
work on a major remediation project carried out at an industrial
site at Ravenscraig, near Motherwell in Scotland.
"That site was a number of times larger than
the one in Haulbowline and was one of the largest industrial
sites in Europe. It has now been made safe after six years
of remediation," the minister said. He said the Scottish site
was recently visited by staff from the EPA and Cork County
Council.
The minister said further test samples would
be taken from the Haulbowline site and compared with ones
previously taken in 2008 when the dump was discovered, close
to the former Irish Ispat/Irish Steel site. Samples taken
then showed traces of Chromium 6, one of the deadliest
carcinogens known to man.
Mr Coveney said the new samples will also be
examined by a peer group of experts.
Members of the European Commission are to visit
the site on November 23 to see for themselves what has to
be done.
The minister said he had set up a special steering
group to oversee the remediation of the site. It includes
representativesfrom the Department of Agriculture, Food and
Marine, Cork County Council, the Port of Cork, National Maritime
College and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Jobs.
Mr Coveney said he was delighted that Mary O’Leary,
who is chairman of CHASE (Cork Harbour for a Safe Environment),
had taken up an invitation to sit on the steering group.
"I want decisions (about what is to be done
to the site) to be taken in a highly transparent way," he
said - adding he was also pleased with the way the council
was aiding the work.
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