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I can't wait til the NS health claims start rolling in, as the ambulance-chasers smell blood.Imagine, an entire Navy claiming off the State for having been poisoned in their place of work by years of toxic dusts and fumes blowing across their vessels and base.Kaching!!
regards
GttC
I can't wait til the NS health claims start rolling in, as the ambulance-chasers smell blood.Imagine, an entire Navy claiming off the State for having been poisoned in their place of work by years of toxic dusts and fumes blowing across their vessels and base.Kaching!!
regards
GttC
It would be difficult to determine whether the health problems were caused by the Steel Mill emissions, or from inhaling asbestos dust from insulating lagging used in the older ships.
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
It would be difficult to determine whether the health problems were caused by the Steel Mill emissions, or from inhaling asbestos dust from insulating lagging used in the older ships.
THE people of Cobh have every right to be worried about high cancer levels. Records show that cancer cases in the Cork Harbour town are 37% higher than the national average.
Harbour toxic dump inquiry attacked
By Sean O’Riordan
Monday, June 21, 2010
CONTAMINATION at a toxic waste dump in Cork harbour won’t be examined by a Government working group investigating how to make the site safe.
The shock revelation comes just weeks after Minister for Health Mary Harney refused to carry out a baseline health study in the area, despite the discovery of a 500,000-tonne dump on Haulbowline Island which contained the highly carcinogenic Chromium 6.
The latest news is bound to fuel even further anger among the people of Cobh which has cancer rates 37% higher than the national average.
Deputy David Stanton accused the Government of either attempting a cover-up or exhibiting incompetence by allowing the working group, set up under the OPW, to examine the future of the site without immediately addressing the most important issue – how to make it safe.
In a reply to a Dáil question posed by the FG deputy, the minister with responsibility for the OPW, Martin Mansergh, outlined the terms of reference of the working group, which held its first meeting last April, nearly two years after the dump was discovered.
Mr Mansergh said the inter-agency group’s remit did not include matters relating to contamination, remediation or containment measures. Instead the group has five other functions.
One is to consult with the Department of Defence and the Defence Forces on the Naval Service’s future requirements on the island and any security issues which may arise.
It is also to report on technical constraints, zoning issues and regulatory requirements of the site.
The working group has also been asked to come up with a comprehensive list of possible future uses for the site. This will involve local consultation.
It will assess costs and benefits of these proposals to ensure the preferred options represent good value for money.
Finally, it is hoped that the working group will bring its report to Government by next October.
Mr Mansergh said the issues of contamination, remediation and containment would be considered when the Government is considering the recommendations presented to it by the working group.
Mr Stanton said he was "very alarmed" that the Government still hadn’t decided how it was going to make the toxic waste dump safe.
"I would have expected the first thing this group would do would be to come up with a solution to clean up or contain the site," he said.
He said there was huge concern in Cobh and the lower harbour area in general about high cancer rates.
"I know we can’t change the past, but I am concerned that in the future we must find the cause of these high cancer rates and try to stop it," he said.
"What the Government is now doing is putting the cart before the horse. What’s happening now is either a cover-up or incompetence," Mr Stanton said.
Thousands of people have already signed two petitions in Cobh which were launched when it became apparent that Ms Harney wasn’t going to fund a baseline health study.
The baseline study was proposed in July 2008 when Minister for the Environment John Gormley said he would recommend it to his Cabinet colleagues.
This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, June 21, 2010
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
an old army term....mar a bhi...our politicians are deciding and gormley will use it as an election term when he intends to save the world
Gormless is too busy sending out letters about stopping the incinerator in dublin bay......
as for old Irish Steel site isn`t it all stacked in neatish piles out in the open , what harm could it do ?.
I should be a politician , where can I collect my pension....
What do you mean abandon ship
Are they taking requests?
The Government has said it has set a two-and-a-half year deadline to complete the clean-up of a toxic dump in Cork Harbour.
The Government has said it has set a two-and-a-half year deadline to complete the clean-up of a toxic dump in Cork Harbour, which contains an estimated 500,000 tonnes of waste.
Threatened with massive fines by the European Commission, the Government is to spend €40m between now and 2014 making the illegal dump at the former Irish Ispat site safe.
Irish Steel and later Irish Ispat operated the country's only steel plant at Haulbowline Island in Cork Harbour for more than six decades, until the plant closed in 2001.
An illegal dump covering 22 acres of the island and containing slag and waste from the steel plant's furnaces is the ugly and dangerous legacy that has been left behind. Much of the waste there is toxic.
Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has been tasked by the Government to oversee the clean-up of the dump. He says it will be done by mid-2014.
The dump at Haulbowline is less than 1km from Cobh and less than 2km from Ringaskiddy and other population bases, where progress on the clean-up has been welcomed.
The interest of the European Commission in the clean-up of this site has brought added immediacy to the project.
And the people who put it there in the first place are long gone.Brilliant.
regards
GttC
Well it has been there for about 80 years......Mittal didn't put it all there. Irish Steel was a Semi-State company from the 1960s on. The tip is the state's problem.
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can't stop them from doing.
An illegal dump,no one noticed the big dumper trucks rumbling around by the basin day and night with hot glowing and smokey slag and dumping it within spitting distance of ships alongside .
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