The High Court has refused Michael Hoey leave to seek judicial review of An Bord Pleanála’s May 2012 consents for wastewater treatment plant projects at Mountmellick and Portarlington.
Mr Justice Hedigan said the court would consider only the two 2012 decisions, because challenges to earlier water abstraction decisions made in 2003, 2006 and 2007 were long out of time. The proceedings were an application for leave to bring judicial review, not a full hearing of the validity of the consents.
Mr Hoey, a carpenter joiner who operated a self-catering barge business on the Grand Canal and Barrow Navigation, argued that low water levels caused by abstraction had stopped his business activities from November 2002. He said the environmental assessment for the wastewater projects failed to address the Barrow’s capacity to assimilate discharges and the cumulative effects of earlier abstraction decisions. He also argued that An Bord Pleanála lacked authority to conduct an environmental impact assessment and that he should be treated as a navigation authority under the Water Supplies Act 1942.
The board submitted that it had assessed the environmental impact, including the submitted environmental impact statement, Mr Hoey’s material, observations, an oral hearing and an inspector’s assessment. It said the projects concerned discharges into the river, while the earlier decisions concerned abstraction. The board also said it carried out an appropriate assessment under the Habitats Directive and imposed conditions, including different maximum effluent levels for the two projects.
The judge accepted that the board had completed an environmental impact assessment under section 175 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, considered the relevant material and granted permission subject to conditions. He said the applicant’s claims of unauthorised project changes were unsupported by evidence. The Water Supplies Act arguments concerned abstraction, not the 2012 decisions to introduce treated wastewater into the river system.
The court also noted that no evidence had been produced to show the board failed to carry out an appropriate assessment or to challenge its decision-making methodology. It concluded that Mr Hoey had relied largely on bare assertions and had not established substantial grounds for judicial review. The court refused leave. It did not quash or otherwise determine the validity of the two consents in a full judicial review hearing.