11 February 1999 Edition

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ESB dumps asbestos on Co Longford housing estate

Tangle of lies, half truths and deceptions - residents

By Roisín de Rossa

People in the little Shannonside village of Lanesborough, Co Longford, are living in fear - great fear. Just before Christmas the residents of Church View saw men in white `space suits' sweeping directly outside their houses - apparently cleaning up, or sweeping up samples to test for asbestos. The residents themselves didn't have any white suits.

All last summer the residents had seen lorries going down to the open ground just beside the houses, bringing earth to the building site on which new houses were still under construction.

The earth went to the wasteground around the building site where the kids play, and in place of top soil for the gardens of the new houses, which are since occupied.

Willie Murray and his family, who lived across the road at the time, moved into one of these new houses. ``Little did I know that these lorries I saw going by every day were filled with earth which had asbestos in it.'' Nor, say the ESB, did they know, though the earth was being moved out of their own power station.

Now in the pub it's: ``Ah here they are from Asbestos City... how's it at Hazardous Heights? Don't get too close - you might light up!''

``Maybe it's funny, but its scary,'' says Willie. ``Asbestos kills people.''

According to Michael Kelly, spokesperson for the Lanesborough ESB, last April or May the ESB had contractors in to install a new oil-interceptor tank beside the Shannon at the power station, and whilst the contractor was excavating earth an ESB worker, whom Michael Kelly says is no longer working with the ESB, came by, observed asbestos, and reported it.

Six months later, on 27 October, the ESB ``became aware'' that asbestos ``had left'' the power station. Two weeks later, on 9 November, the open ground beside Church View was sealed off, with round-the-clock security, after quantities of asbestos ``were discovered''.

The ESB and Forbairt (now Enterprise Ireland) took samples of the earth which were found to be positive for carcinogenic (cancer causing) material.

Since then the trucks have been trundling back to the power station. In the third week of December they stopped. They had removed 328 12-ton truckloads of soil, and 696 bags of asbestos, though ``some of the bags were only a quarter full '' says Michael Kelly, ESB's PRO.

During earth removal ``we had five air filters on the site but they never detected a trace of asbestos '' he says.

Has the ESB been less than open with the Churchview residents? ``Oh no. Not at all,'' says Michael Kelly. ``I absolutely refute that.'' He explains how the Station Manager, Gerry McKenna, personally went round the doors of Church View estate to tell the people what had happened.

The ESB sent people round to sample the front and back gardens some eight weeks ago. The ESB attended a meeting with the Church View Action Group and residents two weeks after the ``discovery'' in Church View, which happened, they said, on 30 October. It was also stated at this meeting that by 12 November a risk assessment was complete on Church View, carried by the ESB's Pat Coleman from their Chemical Services Staff and Longford County Council, and residents would get a copy of this.

They still haven't had it. Nor have they had the results of the samples taken in their gardens over eight weeks ago. ``The residents have all been told not to dig the garden. People are afraid to let their children out in the gardens '' says Brendan Farrell, Secretary of the Residents Group and chair of the Sinn Fein Martin Hurson Mairead Farrell Cumann. ``Why won't they tell us. People are worried. They want to know what is happening. Is there a danger or not? Why do they (the ESB) keep hiding?'' When I put this to Michael Kelly he said he was ``Sorry. Sorry at their worry.''

Meanwhile, 24 hour security people remain on the site. They are just outside Willie's door. He asks, ``Why? Why are they still here if everything is clear?''

Michael Kelly says that ``it's a building site. Quite normal to have security on a building site.''

He doesn't mention what they are building there. ``Anyway,'' Michael Kelly adds, ``24 hour security has been requested by the Council.''

And after all it is the local authority which takes final responsibility for what has happened. Any moving of asbestos has to be done under licence, observing the strictest of conditions including details of quantity, place, and safe storage. Did the ESB move the asbestos bags and soil without a licence from the Longford County Council? The County Council was not available to answer this question. In fact they haven't made themselves available to the people in Church View at all.

However it's unlikely there was any licence because the ESB say they didn't know it was being moved: they didn't know how much was moved: they didn't know where it had been moved to and they didn't even know where it was in the station, though Pat Coleman of the ESB Chemical Services Staff claimed at the meeting that perhaps after all he did know where it was buried.

In any event a licence to store or remove asbestos stipulates records be kept and qualified professionals do the job. When Brendan Farrell asked if the station had a licence, ESB's Pat

Coleman said that they needed no permit. Brendan pointed out that under EU regulations of 1983, they did. Mr. Coleman replied that ``the County Council had given ESB permission.'' And that the Co Council was aware of the ESB's activities with regard to asbestos..

At the meeting with the residents, there was some dispute between ESB representatives whether they had or had not warned the contractors who started digging in the station back in April/May, to ``look out for red bags''.

The minutes of the meeting report N. Greally as saying ``No. The ESB did not contact the contractor to inform his employees about the red bags. We had left it to the man involved''.

Gerry McKenna, Station Manager, however, said that ``the contractor's instruction was that if he came across any red bags he was to report it''. The ESB promised to ``come back to residents on this subject''. They haven't.

The fact is that somebody, sometime, moved at least 696 bags and 328 12-ton truck loads of contaminated earth to Church View from Lanesborough Power Station. And the ESB aren't saying how that came to be. Mr. Kelly also says that earth was moved to a spot on the Ballymahon Road, and two spots on the Roscommon Road, one beside the GAA pitch, another owned by Bord na Mona. ``But there wasn't any sign of asbestos on these sites,'' he says.

These gaps in the ESB's knowledge are all the more amazing given the ESB's own account of the steps they claim to have taken to deal with the problem of asbestos, which are recorded in the Technology Ireland Magazine (March 91) in an article by Peter Byrne of EOLAS (The Irish Science and Technology Agency). In 1968, asbestos was banned in ESB stations. In 1982-87 the ESB ``carried out a major survey of all their power stations, location, type, quantities of asbestos''. In 1984 they ``decided to implement the standard of the very EC directive of 1983 (which necessitated permits to move and store)'' and in 1990 the ESB claims to have ``appointed an asbestos project leader to plan, co-ordinate, monitor and control phased removal of asbestos from selected power stations.''

Yet at the meeting with residents Pat Coleman said that no records were kept `because there was no requirement under the law.'' Michael Kelly, ESB's PRO, in answer to the same crucial question as to why there were no records, replied that ``it is under investigation. I cannot predict the results''. Brendan points out that the asbestos project leader supposedly appointed in 1990, would have had to know.

The ESB representatives at the meeting in November weren't quite sure whether they would ``share'' the report of this investigation with the people of Church View, or not. Gerry McKenna said he wouldn't, then that he would. Pat Stapleton, Group Manager of the Peat Energy Division, said that it would be ``an internal decision whether the report would be issued'' and then he said that it would. As yet they haven't ``shared'' the report with the people in Church View, who still don't know if there is carcinogenic waste sitting in their back gardens.

Furthermore it is equally amazing that the very year in which Michael Kelly, PRO, says that the operation of taking out all the asbestos from the Lanesborough station was completed (all asbestos which could be removed was taken out of the station by 1990), was the year when Michael Kelly himself was dealing with an outcry which emerged in the press and Dail concerning the illegal dumping of asbestos at the back of the Portarlington Power Station in Laois.

Figures for the number of bags started around 300, and multiplied on further inquiry to 7,000 over the years. Ten years after the first discovery of dumped asbestos at Portarlington, another 3,000 bags emerged somewhere else. Ten tons of asbestos, along with 225,000 tons of turf ash were dumped in Bord na Mona bog land, where it was used as foundation ballast for the narrow gauge railway which runs across the vast Clonsast bog from Portarlington to Daingean, in Offaly.

At the time, 1989, Deputies had questioned the credibility of assurances given by ESB representatives concerning disposal of asbestos, and declared the ESB quite unfit to deal with disposal. The ESB called for investigations and declared that mistakes had been made, but that they would learn by them. Deputies mentioned provision for hefty fines, and imprisonment for those who illegally dispose of hazardous waste.

``What possible reason has the ESB to continue to hide the facts?'' asks Brendan. ``If only we knew what they had put where, then we could immediately minimise the risks to ourselves. As it is, we know nothing and can do nothing.''

He went on, ``It makes a laugh of all the talk on the council about participation and transparency in local government. You would think they would come and tell us what they have done, and what they are doing about it. As it is they are playing a game of hide-and-seek with us; they hide asbestos and we seek it, and it might go on for a decade - as it did in Portarlington.''.

``After all, what cost is it to them, a semi-state company on the verge of privatisation,'' Willie asks. ``Who is buying the ESBbestos?''




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