“The effect on local residents is simply unacceptable” says Callan
The stink emanating from the Waste Water Treatment Plant on the Marsh Road has been having a grossly negative impact on the lives of people living in the area for years and complaints have flooded in.
In that time there have been investigations and reports to beat the band, but still the stink persists.
Last Friday the Environmental Protection Agency told Irish Water to take specific actions to address the odours. They basically told Irish Water to get their act together and get the pronblem sorted.
In a statement the EPA said they had instructed Irish Water to identify the source of the night time odours and to take corrective action to resolve odours from the treatment plant and sewer network.
“We also instructed Irish Water to improve how it deals with complaints of odours and to be proactive in its engagement with the local community in relation to odours” they said.
Among the actions which they have directed Irish Water to carry out are:
- Make sure the treatment plant is operated and maintained at all times to avoid causing nuisance through odours.
- Carry out odour supressing dosing to reduce septicity within the sewer network which conveys sewage to the treatment plant.
- Carry out weekly monitoring of waste water at various locations in the treatment plant and take corrective actions in the event the monitoring results indicate a potential risk of generating nuisance odours.
- Complete an odour source audit, odour monitoring and odour modelling report to quantify and rank the odour sources for the entire site.
Independent Councillor Kevin Callan has said the intervention by the EPA is long overdue in terms of demanding action in relation to the odour coming from the plant on the Marsh Road.
“There is one simple fact in relation to the plant and that is that there has been continuous examples of odour in the area, in particular in the evenings and the effect on local residents is simply unacceptable” he said.
“Not only will I be continuing to raise this matter with the EPA but I would encourage everyone in the area to do likewise, together we can demand action and report every single occasion an odour comes from the plant.
I am further calling on Irish Water through its agents, Louth County Council to increase inspections on-site at the plant.
If you wish to report an odour complaint, you can contact Irish Water’s call centre on 1800 278 278. You can also email Irish Water at operations@water.ie.
