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A local authority is poised to shut down and
clean up an unauthorised end-of-life vehicle compound located
next to a reservoir which supplies drinking water to 95,000
people, a court heard recently.
Taxpayers will have to foot Cork County Council’s €16,000
clean-up bill to remove about 140 cannibalised vehicles, car
parts, tyres and batteries stored on the 3-acre site at Coolcower,
just outside Macroom in Co Cork.
Hazardous materials on the site, which juts into part of
the River Lee’s reservoir system, include hydrocarbons, PCBs,
lead and battery acid. However, the site has no containment
measures whatsoever, Clonakilty Circuit Court was told.
Colman Kelly, an executive scientist in the waste enforcement
section of Cork County Council’s Environment Department, told
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin that the council began investigating
the site on foot of complaints.
In February 2008, the council served Section 18 and Section
55 notices, under the Waste Management Act, on the site’s
operator, Corneilius O’Leary, a pensioner who lives in a caravan
on the site, directing him to quantify and qualify the materials
stored there, to prepare a remediation plan for the site,
to stop accepting waste there and to cease the operation.
Mr O’Leary was given some time to resolve the issues, but
the notices were not complied with, Mr Kelly said.
He told the court that, in August 2009, he had recommended
mounting a prosecution against Mr O’Leary, under Section 32
of the Waste Management Act, for causing environmental pollution
and Section 39, for operating the site without a permit or
licence.
Mr O’Leary was convicted and fined a total of €9,000 in the
district court this year and was given time to deal with the
removal of car batteries from the site. However, he brought
an appeal against the severity of the fine to Clonakilty Circuit
Court.
Mr O’Leary’s solicitor, Pat Gould, said his client lives
in difficult circumstances, in a caravan on the site, without
electricity and could not afford to pay. He also said his
client had arranged for the removal of some 18 tonnes of scrap
metal from the site in recent months.
However, Mr Kelly told Judge Ó Donnabháin that an inspection
of the site showed little improvement from previous inspections.
He said experts engaged by the council have said there are
still up to 140 end-of-life vehicles stored there.
He added that the council has no option but to tackle the
site given new EU regulations, which could see the State being
fined up to €1,000 a day from January 1 for not cleaning up
sites like this.
Judge Ó Donnabháin said it is "incumbent on everyone to clean
up this site as soon as possible". He told Mr O’Leary that
council officials have the power to move on to the site at
any time - and any day - to begin the clean-up. He warned
Mr O’Leary not to interfere with the operation and said there
would be dramatic consequences for him if he did.
He adjourned his decision on the severity of the fines until
the clean-up is complete.
Cork County Council has shut down 180 such unauthorised end-of-life
vehicle sites across the county in the last five years. Several
other sites are currently under investigation.
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