by Brian McLaughlin
THE Shannon Foynes Port Company has applied to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a permit to dump 200,000 tonnes of dredged material from construction work on the Port’s new east jetty into the sea.
Construction on the jetty reclamation project is scheduled to start in the new year when the disposal operation will take place. In a public notice, the Port Company states that the overlying silt material is unsuitable for use in the works and will be removed – most likely by the use of a submersible dredge pump.
The proposed disposal site is just off the main shipping channel to the northern shore of the Shannon Estuary about 2.79 kilometres from the east jetty.
The Port Company has also applied to the Minister for the Environment for a licence to undertake foreshore site investigations as part of the reclamation project. The total area which the Company are proposing to reclaim and within which the site investigations are to take place is 1.5 hectares of inter-tidal mudflats.
According to an assessment statement prepared by the international consultancy RPS for the licence application, the proposed works will comprise ten boreholes to be located on the existing foreshore behind the existing berth six in Foynes Port.
The assessment points out that a Nature Impact Statement has already been undertaken as part of the overall planning application to Limerick County Council. This concluded that the site is of great ornithological interest being of international importance on account of the numbers of wintering birds it supports.
Surveys carried out as part of the Environmental Impact Statement for the overall reclamation project concluded that the area of foreshore where the proposed site investigations are to take place was deemed to be of low or no significant ecological value. The site largely comprises inter-tidal mud and is greatly disturbed by human activity and ship berthing.
Experts claim that the work will not lead to changes in the hydrology of the surrounding marine environment and species such as bottlenose dolphins, otter, lamprey and freshwater pearl mussels do not use this area of the estuary.
