One Tipperary industrial site is included in the list of five nationally, which have been warned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to improve its environmental performance or face further sanction.
The Tipperary site named is Tipperary Co-operative Creamery Ltd., Station Rd, Tipperary Town, Co. Tipperary; latter an independent creamery located approximately 500m from Tipperary Town Centre and adjacent to the River Ara. The site has compliance issues with how waste water and run-off from its site is being managed, resulting in a potential risk to the River Ara.
The four other named industrial sites are Arrow Group Limited Co. Kildare, latter which operates as a subsidiary of the Queally Group and owns subsidiaries including Dawn Farms; Irish Cement Limited (Limerick) Co. Limerick and Rosderra Irish Meats Group (Edenderry) Co. Offaly, and T & J Standish (Roscrea) Limited, The Leap, Roscrea, on the Tipperary / Offaly border. This latter site had soil and groundwater contamination due to the use of timber treatment preservative in the past. Compliance issues also in this case relate to the failure of the company to manage a remediation system and to provide for the clean-up costs.
Commenting on the National Priority Sites system, Mr. Gerard O’Leary, Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement, stated, “A small number of sites have significant compliance issues and we consider them to be National Priority Sites for enforcement. The EPA will escalate enforcement action against companies, and their directors, if necessary, if compliance does not improve.”
The EPA Industrial and Waste Licence Enforcement Report 2016, also released, gives details of compliance levels and enforcement activities across the 800 licensed facilities in 2016.
Key findings are:
€178,000 in fines and costs were paid from 11 prosecutions concluded in 2016.
Over 1500 site inspections were completed; 95% of which were unannounced.
Over 1000 complaints were received about licensed facilities; 66% related to odour nuisance.
The top 5 sites most visited were facilities in the Waste Sector.
The highest level of non-complaince were facilities in the Food & Drink sector.
Ms. Mary Gurrie, Programme Manager, EPA’s Office of Environmental Enforcement, commented: “The report shows that the EPA targets its enforcement efforts at the most non-compliant facilties. It is not acceptable for licensed sites to cause nuisance, or to cause an impact on the environment. These operators face further enforcement action.”
The EPA is also reminding members of the public that they can now easily access enforcement information such as site visit and monitoring reports for licensed sites on the EPA website.
Complaints about licensed sites can be made online or by contacting the EPA at Tel: (053) 9160600.
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