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Reclaim Fingal Alliance

A massive sewerage treatment plant is being considered for North County Dublin.

A lobby group "Reclaim Fingal Alliance" has been created to oppose this development. You can contact them at reclaimfingalalliance@gmail.com

Members of the Reclaim Fingal Alliance had a meeting with the minister Dr James Reilly on the 8th of December 2011. Click here to read his response.

The proposed plant by the DOE and FCC is planned to serve a population of 700,000. Our area will become the main sewerage treatment centre for all of Dublin, parts of Kildare and Meath.
9 potential Sites in North Fingal have been selected. They are,

· Newtowncorduff- 2.2km West of Lusk (43 hectares)

· Rathartan – 2km west of Rush and 3km to the east of Lusk (41 hectares)

· Tyrellestown Little – 2.8km north east of Lusk and 3.6KM north west of Rush (114 hectares)

· Saucerstown 3.3KM north east of Swords.

· Annsbrook, Baldurgan, Cookstown – All to the east of Ballyboughal (80 hectares)

·Cloghran & Clonshaugh 2KM from Dublin Airport (max 40 hectares)

The proposed plant should it get the go-ahead from Government will process 1,000 liters of sewerage per second. Over 40, 40ft trucks will be required to haul away the solids left after treatment every hour. Currently the Council will not say where the sludge is being disposed of but its suspected it will go to the incinerator when it is built.
The proposal can be viewed in more detail on the www.greaterdublindrainage.ie
The site would contain the water treatment plant , Outflow Pipes, and Drainage. The outflow pipes from this will be pumped into the sea over between Loughshinny and Rush.

The sites in closest proximity to us are Rathartan and Tyrellestown Little. The Tyrellestown Little site is by far the biggest and it is feared that the facility could be doubled in size very quickly if this site get the go ahead.
Tryrellestown runs from the back of North County Windows, over to the railway track and down way past the railway bridge on Featherbed land its massive.

The 9 sites shown above will be reduced to three possible locations by late January 2012., and they propose to have the preferred site selected by June 2012.

Send in your objections to the proposal to the Minister of the Environment Philip Hogan TD by email minister@environ.ie and to make submissions to the project team, info@greaterdublindrainage.ie
Submissions must be made before November 18^th . At a meeting in Rush last night we were urged to send letters from every member of our households.
Some of the grounds on which we objections to this can be made are:

· The overall project with an estimated cost to Govt., of 2.7 billion is not affordable and is not required infrastructure with the downturn in the economy. Instead an investment and upgrading of local sewerage treatment plants would be a far better approach. It’s also a Fairshare approach where all communities have to be responsible for their own waste.

· Why should Government invest in this type of infrastructure when Schools and Hospitals are far more important for the wellbeing of all its citizens.

· The environmental impact of this on one small area of Fingal the processing centre for this level of projected waste is appallingly unfair on its residents who have already put up with Balleally Dump, Trinity House,. It’s also strongly felt that the facility particularly on the larger site would quickly be extended to cover a million people.

· Ringsend Treatment Plant is clearly not working correctly, despite massive investment and has impacted the local residents quality of life and air. This plant is now under the control of a private company who have no responsibility social or otherwise to the community there.

· The effect on our fishing and shellfish from the outflow pipe will be to decimate the local fishing industry.

· The outfall pipe will bring vermin, mosquitoes, stench and result in serious health problems for households in the greater North County Area.

· North Fingal is the most productive horticultural area in Ireland, this will decimate that industry, shops will not want to buy vegetables grown around sewers.

· Donabate and Portrane have successfully fought of this project for their area. They formed a group called Fairshare and there is a lot of information you can use on their website also.