Arklow needs a Sewage Treatment Plant NOW!
Demand action from your politicians today!
Sign our petition – click
here
Every
day, the toilet waste of almost 12,000 people gets flushed into the River
Avoca.
The
proposed Sewage Treatment Plant was first awarded planning
permission in 1993.
This
was challenged unsuccessfully to An Bord Pleanála. An Bord Pleanála decided in
favour
of the Sewage Treatment Plant but no funding arrived from government and the
planning
permission was allowed to lapse. Further 10 year planning permission was then
granted in
1999. Since then it too has been challenged
unsuccessfully to An Bord Pleanála.
Time
after time, successive governments have taken credit for apparently funding the
construction
of the sewage treatment plant. For example, NDP funding (2000 - 2006)
went
towards the construction of the sewage treatment plant. Where is this phantom
sewage
treatment plant? The current situation is that the High Court ruled in favour
of
the
proposed Sewage Treatment Plant for a third time on Friday 05th/October/2007.
The
proposed
plant is stuck in the Courts for years, and seems to have taken up permanent
residence
there. The Department of the Environment has given assurances that the scheme
has
been approved for funding under the Water Services Investment Programme 2007 –
2009.
This would allow for the necessary Advance Works to begin in 2008. In December
2007,
Wicklow
County Council applied to the EPA for a licence to continue using the
Avoca
River as an open sewer for the town of Arklow. On Friday the 11th/January/2008,
Justice
Frank Clarke granted leave to the objectors to appeal his decision to the
Supreme
Court.
Meanwhile
raw human effluence continues to flow untreated into the River Avoca.
We,
the citizens of Arklow need to put a stop to this situation NOW. Demand action
from
your
political representatives. We need a Sewage Treatment Plant NOW.
The
final stretch of the Avoca River as it approaches the sea is regarded by the
Environmental
Protection
Agency as the most polluted stretch of river in Ireland. According to the 2006
Census,
the town of Arklow has a population of 11,712 people making it the 33rd
largest town
or
city in Ireland. As of 2007, there has never been any form of sewage treatment
facility for
the
town of Arklow. All sewage from Arklow passes through a combined sewer system
which
was installed in the 1930s, and gets discharged untreated, directly into the
River Avoca
from
a series of outfall pipes on both riverbanks between the Arklow Bypass bridge
over
the
river, and the mouth of the river. On 21/May/1991, the European Commission
adopted the
Urban Waste Water Directive.
This directive created deadlines
for its implementation. As of
31/December/2005,
all urban areas with a population equivalent
greater than 2,000 people are
legally
obliged under European law to have the relevant treatment facilities and
collection
systems.
In 1990, the Department of the Environment, spurred on by the impending EU
Urban
Wastewater
Treatment Directive, initiated the process of creating a secondary sewage
treatment
facility
for Arklow by requesting the town council to prepare an Environmental Impact
Statement.
17 years later the town still has no sewage treatment facility, despite an
increase in
population
of almost 4,000 people (circa. 50%) since 1990 The continued discharge of
sewage
into
the River Avoca is illegal under European Law. Why have our politicians failed
to act?
The
“Clean Our River” campaign is entirely non-political. This is about the
people of
Arklow
exercising their will as Irish citizens, and not as members of political
parties.
Members
of any political persuasion are welcome to join our cause.
Wicklow
People – 23rd August 2007
Avoca
River 'the filthiest' in Ireland
DIVERS WHO have
been searching last week for a 28-year-old Latvian man believed drowned in the
Avoca River
at Arklow say
that the water in the river was the filthiest they had ever encountered. Divers
from the Garda Water
Unit searched the
river for three days last week and volunteer divers from the Boyne Fishermen's
Rescue and Recovery
Group continued
the search over the weekend. No trace of the missing man has been found, apart
from his clothes,
which were
located beside the river by a local lifeboat crew member last Sunday morning
(August 12).
Thomas Daly, from
the Boyne group, said the filth in the river was worse than anything else he
had experienced.
'It was
absolutely disgusting,' he said. 'We are used to diving in zero visibility but
in the Avoca, we were diving in two
and a half feet
of raw sewage.' 'On one dive near the sewage outfall pipe, it was like it was
snow underwater, because
there was bits of
toilet paper everywhere. 'It is just disgusting, filthy and the worst we have
ever come across. Human
excrement is
floating past you all the time,' another diver was quoted as saying. Divers had
to thoroughly clean and
disinfect their
drysuits after each dive. Gardai this week called off the underwater search and
concentrated on surface
searches of the
Avoca River and Arklow Bay area.
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30/April/2007
FOR THE ATTENTION
OF THE EDITOR OF THE WICKLOW PEOPLE – 30/April/2007
Dear Sir/Madam,
The Arklow Sea
Scout Group was established in 1972, and caters for young people
between the ages of 6 years old
and 21 years old. From
our beginning we have been using the River Avoca for our activities. I was
reared with Sea Scouting
and I have grown to
value what the river has to offer. We are one of the primary users of the
river. The lower basin is ideal
for small-boating, it
has a small tidal range of 1.3m, which means you can carry out all
activities at any time of day. Unlike
most rivers you will not
be swept away on an ebbing tide. The river above the bridge is shallow and
safe, ideal for flat
water-canoeing. What is
unusual about the river is that there is very little farmland or industry from
its source to the sea.
However,
the unfortunate reality is that the lower section of river is extremely
polluted mostly by sewage. The sight of
human
effluence in the river can be hard to stomach, along with the sight of, among
other things, condoms, syringes, nappies,
cooking
fats, and oils. When people flush these things down their drains, do they ever
consider where they are going? When
these
same people decide to cool off on scorching hot days by visiting the beach, do
they wonder what they are swimming in?
We as Sea
Scout Leaders unfortunately need to insist that all of our members shower
after each boating session. We were
forced to
fundraise so that we could build a shower block, for the safety of all our
members. Why is it that in this day and age,
after
over a decade of unprecedented economic success in this country, that we have
to fear diseases such as Weil's disease
and
Cholera whenever we go boating?
So we
move on to the contentious issue of the Arklow Sewerage Treatment Plant, a saga that has been running for almost 15
years now. Every citizen has a right to
object to planned developments, but for how long can a small group of hardcore
objectors
hold an entire town to ransom? How long can this saga continue for, not only as
a planning issue, but also as a matter
of public
health? It is my understanding that Arklow is the largest town in Ireland
without a sewerage treatment plant. Is it not
enough
that we also have to contend with the poisonous contents of the Avoca mines
leaching into the river water, and the fact
that when
treatment plants in towns like Rathdrum break down, the wastewater is released
into the river system which
eventually
flows through Arklow? Legislation should exist permitting matters of public health
to take precedence in cases of
planning
appeals.
I can
remember a recent news report on RTE News where they filmed the sewage of a
small village in Galway flowing into a
local
river. Recent Census figures show the population of Arklow to be 11,759 people,
many more than in the village featured
in the
RTE News report. Every day, each of those 11,759 people flush their toilets at
least once. The waste then flows
through a
drainage system built in the 1940s, and then spews out into the River Avoca
completely untreated. Perhaps
we won’t
receive the same level of attention until an outbreak of cryptosporidium occurs
here in County Wicklow.
Will we,
the citizens of Arklow, have to endure this perennial fiasco until someone gets
seriously ill, or perhaps dies, as a
result of
diseases contracted from the River Avoca? The voters of this town have to
realise that the powers of change lie in
their own
hands. When the politicians come knocking on the door looking for votes, ask
them what they plan on doing to end
this
debacle. Demand that they act to end this farce with immediate effect. Most
importantly, cast your vote in the general
election
for candidates who you believe will act to bring this apparently never-ending
travesty to a conclusion.
I dream
of a time when the young people of Arklow can spend those lazy Summer
afternoons swimming in the Avoca river,
free of
any worries, and free of any potential harm. Walking along the riverbank on
sunny days as we have had in abundance
over the
past few month, I think to myself that this dream is as far away as ever.
Yours in Sea Scouting,
David Kavanagh.
Sea Scout Leader,
Port of Arklow Sea Scout
Group.