The High Court has ordered Louis O’Regan and Aggregate Supplies and Transport Limited to commission and pay for an investigation into waste at Weir Island, Barryscourt, County Cork, after finding a continuing risk of environmental pollution.
Mr Justice Clarke made the order under section 57 of the Waste Management Act 1996 in a judgment delivered on 17 June 2005. Cork County Council had originally sought orders to stop waste dumping and require its removal. By the hearing, the council was seeking an order for a site investigation and report, including a mitigation plan, by Fehilly Timiney.
The judge said a 2004 preliminary report found that no previous site investigations had been conducted and that the quantity and quality of the deposited materials remained unclear. The judgment estimated the waste at a minimum of 100,000 tonnes and possibly close to 200,000 tonnes. It said the fill covered about 50,000 square metres and extended beyond the original high water mark in places.
The court relied in part on a guilty plea by the company to charges arising from events on 17 December 2003. The company was convicted of operating without a waste licence and of handling waste in a way that caused or was likely to cause environmental pollution. The judge recorded that the company had been fined €100,000 on one charge, with the other charge taken into consideration. He also found, independently of that conviction, that the evidence established a continuing pollution risk, including risks to tidal mud flats and a designated conservation area.
The respondents had argued, among other points, that the requested investigation was not included in the original court motion and that the court should not deal with the case in stages. The judge held that section 57 gave the court jurisdiction to order a report where the pollution risk was established but the necessary remedial works remained uncertain. He considered the investigation proportionate given the volume and unknown composition of the waste, and the range of possible remedies. A preliminary estimate for full removal and remediation was €43.7 million; the estimated cost of the report was €210,600.
The order is an initial step. It does not require the respondents to carry out any particular remediation work. The judge said they could later argue that recommendations in the report should not become court orders. He also held that O’Regan, whom the judgment identified as landowner and as manager or supervisor of the waste activity, could be subject to an order in his personal capacity.