Summer downpours and Dublin Bay

It's 8th August 2019, and we've had some heavy downpours in the last few days. Dublin City Council has spoken with HSE and EPA and is saying don't swim in Dublin Bay. That's good advice. For the moment don't swim. The Bay flushes out fairly quickly, so the next couple of days should see cleaner water, but there may be more downpours on 9th August 2019, so don't put on your togs just yet. 

The current Ringsend Treatment Plant was commissioned in 2003 to serve a population of 1.65 million. It currently treats wastewater for the equivalent of 1.9 million people, that's 15% over-capacity. Just twenty years ago since the infamous ‘ship of shame’ MV Sir Joseph Bazalgette was taken out of service. It shipped our, eh shit to Howth.  Here’s an article by journalist Frank McDonald from 1999. Why Sir Joseph Bazalgette? One of my Victorian heroes, here, take a read…  

It's worth noting that the European Commission has taken an infringement case against Ireland in relation to the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive  Looking ahead, a big upgrade €400 million upgrade is on the way for the Ringsend Sewage Treatment Plant. The plans got the green light from Bord Pleanála back in April of this year. This means less no swim notices in the future and the works should be completed by end of 2021. A previous proposal would have involved a 9km pipeline out into Dublin bay. That’s where I got the notion of building a new island with the spoil, but I digress.

The current proposed upgrade will use a technology called Aerobic Granular Sludge. This is a new process (invented around 2005) that gobbles up the pollutants more quickly than the old plant. It means faster and less costly sewage treatment. Aerobic granules are a type of sludge that can self-immobilize flocs and microorganisms into spherical and strong compact structures. Sorry you asked? But these type of summer downpours represent a real challenge and can overwhelm any Sewage Plant. Will they be more likely with climate change? I suspect so. 

We also need to separate out the storm sewers (rain water) from the ordinary sewers (poo) as currently in the inner city they both go into the same pipe, and that’s another challenge for @irishwater. As you can see this stuff interests me, I used to lecture in it at @WeAreTUDublin. Want to find out more? Check out two fascinating books by former Dublin City Council engineers Michael Corcoran and Clair Sweeney: 'Our Good Health' and 'The Rivers of Dublin'.

Answers needed on Ballymount Fire

Like many Dubliners I woke up on Saturday to the acrid smell of smoke. At first we thought there was a fire in the house, but as dawn broke we could see a large dark plume of smoke in West Dublin coming from the Oxigen plant in Ballymount. It soon became clear that one of Ireland’s largest buildings had gone up in smoke. The Recycling facility accepts waste from all over Dublin and beyond. Most of the contents of the  city’s green bins ends up being processed there. Thankfully, no-one appears to have been injured in the immediate blaze, but as the fire smoulders on 48 hours after the blaze there are many questions for the Environmental Protection Agency and Oxigen to answer.

A minimalist statement on the Oxigen website states ”Oxigen Environmental would like to assure all customers that the fire at our Ballymount, Dublin site will not disrupt any services.”  Their Twitter feed was last update on 18 December last. This lack of information is entirely unacceptable for a company that accepted over three thousand tonnes of hazardous waste at their site in 2012.

Thousands of people live close  their site at Ballymount near the Red Cow Interchange, and if I was woken by the smell in Stoneybatter siX kilometres away i can only imagine what the smells and fumes were like in Crumlin and Bluebell that lay in the path of the smoke cloud.

Thankfully the Environmental Protection Agency issued advice stating that those in the path of the smoke plume should  stay indoors and keep windows and doors closed. However people need to know how dangerous the smoke is, and whether parents should move young children or elderly family members away from the area. It is unacceptable that more detailed information is not available two days after the blaze. The EPA also doesn’t appear to have up to date information available on their air quality website although their air quality Twitter feed gave some information, but no detailed breakdown of the type of pollution.

There are also questions to be answered from Ballymount as to why they were storing so much inflammable waste on the site without adequate fire breaks between stacks of material wrapped in highly inflammable plastic. An image of the plant taken from above last Summer shows a huge amount of material in rows over a hundred metres long.

South Dublin  County Council needs to comment on whether their Fire Certification allowed such a large amount of flammable material to be stored in close proximity to the plant itself.

Another worry is how much pollution of groundwater and rivers has occured. The run-off from fire-fighting has potential to kill fish life and pollute the Camac River and the Liffey, and it is unclear whether measures to retain this contaminated water were in place.

Dubliners are entitled to more detailed information about what has occurred in Ballymount. Parents with young children who live close to the Plant are justifiable afraid and concerned for their children. The company and the various local authorities and other agencies need to make available clearer information to the general public

Looking ahead there are questions about the cause of the fire and whether all permits and permissions were in order. We do know that there were two fires at the plant in 2012. South Dublin County Council must state whether Planning Permissions and Fire Certificates were in order. The EPA must consider whether the storage of so much waste on the site was compatible with the Waste License that they issued.