TIPT is a free weekly environmental news service published by Friends of the Irish Environment. More than 12,500 stories from the last four years are searchable on our website, where comments can be posted on individual stories.
Recent copies of The Irish Papers Today, The Forest Network Newsletter, and Friends' News are now available in their original format from our new archive. |
| EU tackles government on weak EIA |
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 The European Court of Justice (ECJ) will deliver its judgment on Thursday in a case brought by the European Commission against the government for allegedly infringing the law on environmental impact assessments, writes Kieron Wood.
The commission claims that Ireland's implementation of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) directive is deficient, because Ireland only requires EIAs to be carried out for large projects. The commission said the directive required other criteria to be taken into account, including ''cumulation with other projects, location, the environmental sensitivity of the geographical area and the impact on landscapes of historical, cultural or archaeological significance''. Read more. |
| Nearly a third of Irish rivers and streams polluted - EPA |
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 Almost a third of rivers and streams in the Republic are polluted, a study revealed today. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on water quality said run-off from waste treatment plants and farms was the main cause of pollution in rivers, lakes and coastal seas. It also found human or animal effluent was detected in more than half of the groundwater locations, such as springs, sampled around the country.
The comprehensive three-year review studied the conditions in some 13,240kms of river and stream channel (1,151 rivers), 449 lakes, 69 estuarine and coastal water bodies and 137 groundwater-monitoring stations from 2004 - 2006. Read more. |
| Contract for waste water plant allowed odour levels 20 times those first agreed |
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 THE CONTRACT to develop a waste water treatment plant at Ringsend, Dublin, allowed odour levels 20 times higher than those stipulated in the project's environmental impact statement (EIS), a report has found.
The independent report, by consultant Brendan Fehily, said the inclusion of the higher figure in the operations contract between Dublin City Council and construction and operations consortium ABA, "was either a serious error of judgment or a mistake".
Minister for the Environment John Gormley, who commissioned the report, said he noted a failure to adhere to EIS recommendations was a key element in the subsequent issues at the plant. "I would hope individuals or bodies can be held to account," he said. Read more. |
| Council facing charges over use of weedkiller |
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 Meath County Council is to be prosecuted over the use of a weed killer against roadside vegetation. The Department of the Environment has begun legal proceedings against the Council and a private company.
The case is to be heard in the District Court later this month and will revolve around the alleged deployment of 2,4-D, a broad spectrum herbicide.
The issue first came to light in May of this after a farmer, in Churchtown, James McConnell, claimed that broad-leaved plants and hedgerows had been damaged on a stretch of the N51 between Navan and Athboy. Read more. |
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Judge refers unauthorised Slane quarry's papers to DPP |
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 HIGH court judge has ruled that a stone quarry at Slane, Co Meath, which employs 50 people, constitutes unauthorised development and is operating without the required planning permission. Mr Justice John Hedigan also referred papers in the case to the DPP after finding there were grounds to suspect a "carefully-planned" effort to subvert the planning process by altering or forging an official form to the advantage of quarry owner,Patrick Shiels.
He upheld arguments by Meath County Council that operations intensified at the quarry since 2004, when it was purchased for €1 million by Mr Shiels, amounting to a material change of use for which planning permission was required. Read more. |
| Bottled water scare as dangerous germs found |
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 Shocking levels of contamination in bottled waters sold here are exposed in a confidential report by the State's food safety watchdog.
The draft report -- a copy of which has been seen by the Irish Independent -- reveals that harmful bacteria, including E coli, have been found in bottled waters on sale throughout the country.
Environmental health officers found 7.2pc of bottled waters they sampled for the report were in breach of either legal or EU guidelines.
They also found that one-in-every-11 samples of Irish-produced water tested positive for contaminants -- compared to just one in every 119 imported brand samples tested. Read more. |
| Sea-level rises could endanger Dublin Bay assets - expert |
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 PROJECTED GLOBAL rises in sea levels throughout the remainder of this century could put some $33 billion (EUR26 billion) worth of assets around Dublin Bay at risk, a leading expert on climate change has warned. Prof Colin Woodroffe, who has authored a report for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said that sea levels are projected to rise by between 18 and 59cm over the remainder of the century due to climate change.
These calculations are based on the thermal expansion of water as the seas heat up, and do not include the effects of continuing ice melts which will add further to sea-level rises but which make projections more difficult to model. Read more. |
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Gormley pledges help on incinerator case costs |
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 ANTI-incineration campaigners in Ringaskiddy, Co Cork who were shell-shocked to hear the onus is on them to fork out thousands of euro to cover the cost of a legal action against incinerator firm Indaver, have been pledged support by Environment Minister John Gormley.
Earlier this week the Supreme Court ordered the Ringaskiddy and District Residents' Association and a number of individuals to pay the legal costs of their unsuccessful attempts to further adjourn two legal challenges to the proposed EUR75 million development of the State s first hazardous waste incinerator at Ringaskiddy. Read more. |
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Hunt's legal threat to Gormley's video spies |
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 It is, as Oscar Wilde might say, a case of the Unreasonable in hot pursuit of the Unspeakable. Environment Minister John Gormley is threatening to achieve overnight what hasn't happened in 154 years - evoke public sympathy for the property tycoons of the Ward Union Hunt.
Instead of simply banning the anachronistic stag hunt outright, Mr Gormley has declared a war of attrition - and, the hunters say, he has sent out an army of park rangers to videotape their activities, at an eye-watering cost to the taxpayer of EUR11,000 a pop. The furious horsemen are threatening a legal challenge, saying the rangers are filming on private. Read more. |
| Why new Mayo development plan is deemed 'unacceptable' by Minister |
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 THE principal officer of the spatial policy division at the Department of Environment, has given a detailed explanation why Minister John Gormley issued a directive to Mayo County Council to bring its new county development plan into line with national guidelines. David Walsh said the Minister regarded the reserved functions of elected members in respect of preparing and adopting development plans under planning legislation to be a core role in securing a sustainable and rational plan for their area.
However, the Minister was obliged to write to the council in June 2007 to express concern that the amount of land zoned for residential development was approximately six times the level that would be needed to service forecasted population growth over the plan period. He explained: "The draft plan provided for a population increase of almost 80,000 people, through zonings scattered countywide. Read more. |
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Sligo hosts gathering of 43 countries on access rights |
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 SLIGO hosted a global gathering last week, which involved more than 70 people from 43 different countries.
The Access Initiative (TAI), an international organisation which works to provide people with access to government information and decision making, held its annual Global Gathering at IT Sligo.
TAI is the world's largest network of civil society organisations working to ensure that people have the right and ability to influence decisions about the natural resources that sustain their communities. The Global Gathering brings together members of TAI. Read more. |
| Slaughtered: Trinity College experiments on 41 beagles |
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 University spends €600,000 on dogs, pigs, rabbits, rats and mice for research
Trinity College Dublin has spent over €600,000 in the past three years procuring 41 live beagle dogs, 69 pigs and over 16,000 mice for medical or scientific research, a Sunday Tribune investigation has established. According to figures obtained by this newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act, Trinity also bought more than 2,300 rats - and four rabbits - in that time. It is understood that most of the research funding comes from the government's multimillion-euro Science Foundation Ireland initiative. Read more. |
| Knowth - 1967 - 2008 |
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 Forty years ago, the bearer of the flashlight, archaeologist George Eogan, became the first person in centuries to see the underground passage tomb at Knowth in Meath, part of Brú na Bóinne (Bend of the Boyne), now a Unesco World Heritage site.
"The western tomb was stunning but the east one was huge," he says. "I was always so impressed with Newgrange, I thought there could never be another one, and then to discover something somewhat bigger than Newgrange, this long passage. And it's a tribute to the builders that we were were able to enter both tombs on the moment of discovery. Here we were going into these tombs which were 5,000 years old and it was possible for us to enter." Read more. |
| Defender of fishermen and marine |
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PÁDRAIG Ó CÉIDIGH, who has died aged 75, was professor emeritus and former head of the department of zoology at the National University of Ireland, Galway. In Who's Who (1972) he stated that his ambition was for Ireland to make "full use of her marine resources", an objective of which he never lost sight. To this end he carried out experiments to establish the possibility of rearing oysters in controlled conditions. His findings prompted Gaeltarra Éireann to launch a pioneering maritime venture. Read more. |
| George Best Airport plans extension |
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 George Best Belfast City Airport yesterday submitted a planning application to extend its runway by 590 metres. The move would allow aircraft already using the airport to fly to more distant destinations, including Europe and the Mediterranean, it said. But the airport has insisted the number of flights per year will not increase from the 48,000 agreed with the Department of the Environment, and no bigger aircraft will be introduced. More jobs could be created both on-site at the airport and off-site if planning permission is granted, the airport said. However, the plan has aroused the ire of residents who say it will allow airlines to fly aircraft with heavier fuel loads, meaning they will be noisier and fly lower over east Belfast. Read more. |
| Breeding success for Farne birds |
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 Seabirds at a key North Sea colony have generally enjoyed a successful season in 2008, a survey has shown. Four key species - shags, eider ducks, guillemots and razorbills - have all recorded population increases on the National Trust owned Farne Islands. The survey's findings are in sharp contrast to the nationwide trend, which has seen an overall decline in the number of seabirds at UK colonies. However, puffin numbers on the islands have fallen by a third in recent years. Read more. |
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Campaigner wins seven-year battle to force rethink on use of pesticides |
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 Defra must reassess health risks and policy, says judge - Victim suffered 24 years of illness from crop spraying
An environmental campaigner yesterday won a landmark victory against the government in a long-running legal battle over the use of pesticides. The high court ruled that Georgina Downs, who runs the UK Pesticides Campaign, had produced "solid evidence" that people exposed to chemicals used to spray crops had suffered harm. The court said the government had failed to comply with a European directive designed to protect rural communities from exposure to the toxins. It said the environment department, Defra, must reassess its policy and investigate the risks to people who are exposed. Defra had argued that its approach to the regulation and control of pesticides was "reasonable, logical and lawful". Read more. |
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BP pulls out of UK wind power - and also CCS competition |
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BP has changed its view of wind power in the UK, and now sees America as the most attractive investment opportunity for wind farms. BP has confirmed that it will not take forward plans to develop wind farms in the UK, suggesting that opportunities are "more attractive" in the United States.
And, as the oil giant confirmed its new direction to New Energy Focus this morning, he revealed that BP is also pulling out of the UK's competition to set up a carbon capture and storage plant to demonstrate technology to remove greenhouse gas emissions from coal power generation.
Includes a detailed discussion of the state of CCS.
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One-third of Britain's beaches are contaminated |
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More than one in three British beaches pose a health risk to swimmers, according to startling figures released by the department for environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) last week - the worst results since 2001. Analysis of bathing water at Britain's 587 officially designated bathing beaches revealed that 207, or 35%, failed to meet World Health Organization guideline safety standards for swimmers' health. Of these, 24 - including popular holiday spots such as Rock, in Cornwall, Combe Martin, in Devon, and Sandgate, in Kent - failed even to pass the much less stringent UK minimum standards for faecal and bacterial contamination. Read more. |
| Biodiversity policy failures lambasted |
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Government planning policies to protect biodiversity and geological conservation are failing, the Commons environmental audit committee warned this week. In a report, MPs complained that PPS9 has failed to bring about the necessary step-change for habitat creation and biodiversity protection. They added that the biodiversity duty placed on local authorities by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 is failing to deliver. Read more. |
| EU rule change 'threat to birds' |
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 A key weapon in the fight against wildlife crime could be lost because of changes to European agricultural policy, the RSPB has warned. Landowners and farmers currently lose EU cash if they use "non-selective" methods of bird population control, such as poisoning. However, the EU wants to break the link between Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments and wildlife laws. Read more. |
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Brussels proposes wider EU energy label |
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 An EU energy label for household appliances is to be extended to all energy-related products that have a significant impact on energy consumption under draft legislation proposed by the European commission on Thursday. Public authorities would only be allowed to buy products above a certain efficiency class.
The revised energy labelling scheme is part of a major package of measures to further improve energy efficiency and increase the security of European energy supplies (see related articles, this issue). The revision also fits into an EU plan to boost sustainable consumption and production unveiled earlier this year. Read more. |
| Have A Break, Have A Kit-Kat - And Wreck Rainforests |
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Household brands including Kit-Kat, Flora and Dove soaps have been linked to the mass destruction of Asian rainforests for palm oil plantations. The millions of acres ear marked for clearance include some of the last habitats of orangutans and other endangered species such as clouded leopards and sun bears. Soaring global demand for palm oil - now at 41m tons a year - has already seen the destruction of about 20m acres of rainforest in Malaysia. Another 25m acres have been destroyed in Indonesia. It has also made Indonesia the world's third largest producer of greenhouse gases, emitted by decaying peat and vegetation exposed by the clearances. Read more. |
| Turning every home into a power station |
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HERE'S THE answer to the global energy crisis: the power of one. No, not the home-grown campaign that encourages you to turn off lights and wash laundry at 30 degrees. No, this is the power of one as outlined by US chemist Prof Daniel Nocera, an advocate of "personalised energy" who is currently in Ireland to speak at a major scientific conference. His vision turns your house into a power station, reaping renewable energy from the sun or wind, converting it to electricity and then - rather than feeding it back to a communal power grid - stores it in your basement so that you can use it at your leisure. Read more. | |
