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The Irish Times has reported that the Minister for
the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, John Gormley
TD has ordered an independent inquiry into the Ringsend sewage
plant, following the payment by Dublin City Council of an
additional €35.6 million to the developers of the facility.
The council said that it would co-operate fully with the
Minister's inquiry, but has not clarified why the contractors
- the ABA consortium - should be given additional money.
It is understood the money relates - in part - to work undertaken
to eliminate the odours that emanated from the plant since
it opened in 2003. The plant has made a substantial improvement
to the water quality in Dublin Bay. However, residents of
the surrounding suburbs of Ringsend, Sandymount and Irishtown
have had to contend with a persistent foul odour since the
plant began operations.
The council and ABA - a construction and operations consortium
involving Ascon, sewerage specialists Black Veatch and Anglia
Water - have made several attempts to resolve the problem.
In April 2005, the council said it would refuse to sign-off
on the €300 million project until ABA eliminated the problem.
The council was also seeking reimbursement of the €1 million
it has invested in odour-abatement measures.
Later that year, the council decided to spend an additional
€5 million of public money on the odour elimination programme,
but maintained that the consortium would still foot the bill
for the capital costs of the necessary systems and machinery.
The €5 million was associated with the annual cost of processing
the city and county's waste, assistant city manager Matt Twomey
said.
Now, however, it appears that the council has made an additional
payment of €35.6 million to cover ABA's costs, despite having
given assurances that the public purse would not bear the
brunt of the defects in the plant. The council would not say
why it has handed over the money - but, in a statement, said
it was its priority to resolve issues relating to odours from
the works.
"The necessary works are on time and within budget and will
be completed in the autumn as previously announced" - it said.
"The city council will co-operate with the independent investigation
which the Minister has announced" - the statement concluded.
Minister Gormley has sanctioned the council's payment to
ABA, but said he wanted an inquiry to resolve the questions
surrounding the design and capacity of the plant and the efforts
to deal with the odour issue.
"There were protracted delays at commissioning and testing
of the new plant in 2002, when it experienced difficulties
in achieving the required performance standards. In addition,
odour problems were experienced within a short time of the
plant coming into operation."
In a report by RTE News, however, it has emerged that the
Ringsend sewage plant is, in fact, treating almost 20% more
effluent than it is supposed to.
The data is contained in a Council submission to An Bord
Pleanála from last November, stating that the current volume
of material significantly exceeds design capacity. The submissions
deals with the proposed expansion of the plant by roughly
one-third.
It would now appear that the payment of €35.6m - at
least in part - is related to the fact that the plant is operating
far and above the levels that it is supposed to.
Dublin City Council states that the throughput of the plant
was estimated to be at 1.9m PE (population equivalent). However,
the full capacity of the plant is only 1.6m PE.
This means that the Ringsend facility is dealing with 18.75%
more waste that it should be.
Source - The Irish Times
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