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.''
d 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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