Haulbowline, Ispat, and why Globalisation is bad for Ireland.

ircoha

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0626/haulbowline.html refers.

The issue here is that the vast bulk of the toxic waste that is dumped here was imported by Ispat before it walked away from the site in June 2001 on foot of this threat
http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/0312/ispat.html
from the EPA

It closed in June 2001
http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/0615/ispat.html

The plant was sold in 1996 to Ispat for if I recall correctly a quid or 2.

They then used it as a dump and have left the Irish taxpayer with a bill which will be close to a billion euro by the time it is all sorted.

The question needs to be asked: who was looking the other way when all this stuff was being imported and dumped

Victor

The article is ambiguous and I suspect a lot of it has been there since before the Ipsat era.

AngryHippie

Did the dumping happen pre-sale or in the years since ?

I'm assuming that it happened while the plant was open, before the site was sold, which would make it a different kettle of fish.

Bit of a disgrace either way though

probe

While I’m not attempting to make excuses for Arcelor Mittal (formerly Ispat), whom the cynic might say did a slow-burn liquidation deal with the Irish government of the day (rather than the latter taking the politically more difficult route of appointing an insolvency practitioner to shut the place down quickly) - it seems to me that much, if not most of the pollution left on the Irish Steel site on the island was generated and dumped there during the period when the plant was incompetently operated by the Irish government as a nationalised industry (from the 1950s to 1995).

While globalisation is not green and has failed in most cases to create a sustainable model, the Irish Steel “nuclear waste dump” in not a fault of globalisation, by any stretch of the imagination. One could think of much better things to do with an island in Cork Harbour (Fota Island being one example – kept in private ownership until just over a decade ago), Haulbowline Island’s descent into being a cesspit dates back to 1806 when the British Army was allowed to take it over…..

.probe

http://www.passagewestmonkstown.ie/haulbowline-island.asp
http://www.arcelormittal.com/

mike65

..ah blame the Brits. Nothing to do with the last 85 years then!

Mike.

probe

mike65 wrote: »

..ah blame the Brits. Nothing to do with the last 85 years then!

Mike.

Read my posting again....

.probe

mike65

I know I know I was only joshing.

That half a million tonnes (and that must be a guess) has been allowed to accumulate is scandelous. I wonder has a full evironmental inventory ever been done in the Cork habour area. I wouldn't be suprised if the place wasn't pock-marked with dubious locations hidden by undergrowth or behind barbed wire.

Mike.

Bee

ircoha wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0626/haulbowline.html refers.

The issue here is that the vast bulk of the toxic waste that is dumped here was imported by Ispat before it walked away from the site in June 2001 on foot of this threat
http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/0312/ispat.html
from the EPA

It closed in June 2001
http://www.rte.ie/news/2001/0615/ispat.html

The plant was sold in 1996 to Ispat for if I recall correctly a quid or 2.

They then used it as a dump and have left the Irish taxpayer with a bill which will be close to a billion euro by the time it is all sorted.

The question needs to be asked: who was looking the other way when all this stuff was being imported and dumped

Well! Obviously John whats his name Gormley, the "green" :rolleyes:minister for the environment is probably the worst of all of the wasters that has let this go on.

Why does it always take a bloomin newspaper article for things like this to be brought out into the open?

Green party my butt!

Have a read:

http://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.net/paperstoday/index.php?do=paperstoday&action=view&id=12081