Poor Air Quality

markj2009

The air quality in Letterkenny is the evenings is very bad. The air is smoggy from smoky coal which is still being burned by many people it seems.

A recent Nationwide programme on RTE said the air quality in Letterkenny and 3 other major towns is worse than Dublin City. The smoky coal ban was introducted in Dublin in 1990.

I would be very concerned about the effect on people's health of this pollution. High time a ban on smoky coal was introduced and enforced.

Cereal Number

<SNIP>

Mod edit: warning given

danniemcq

Personally I am far from happy about smokeless fuel.

Its terrible at actually heating compared to decent stuff

Years ago when i had relations in Dublin we would have to bring coal up for them any time we vistited.

I wouldn't be in favour of the ban right now i would want a more in depth look at the results.

according to the latest EPA study available the quality is currently ranked as good.

http://www.epa.ie/whatwedo/monitoring/air/data/lk/

This result is from a few years ago

The Letterkenny site was located at the Donegal County Museum, High Street, Co. Donegal. The assessment took place between May 2008 and July 2009.
Levels of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, benzene and PM10 were measured. The assessment report was made available in 2010.

Did nationwide have the same tests as EPA? did they get the data from the station? Did they run their own test. Were these tests done over a year or on a select number of days?

For example when were these results taken? Was it during one of those still evenings during the winter where everything hangs in the air as letterkenny being surrounded by hills could mean it can trap the output. An average reading over a number of nights like these can skew the numbers.

Same goes for traffic, is the output from cars also included in this? perhaps before banning smoke coal they should actually get a decent bus service, make main street pedestrian only and have more cycle lanes than one thats nowhere near the town.

I mean if the main street is full of cars each and every day and that’s in middle of the town and quite a lot of houses and residential areas you are going to have an issue.

a pedestrian only zone and a better bus service (heck you could even have a bus limited to 10kph that could be allowed up the main street once an hour so people aren't left high and dry till again they get used to it.

you could impliment cycle taxis too like you see in Galway and Dublin in the pedestrian areas

EDIT: looking at the enviorn website

Six new provincial towns are to be included (with effect from May 2013) because they have populations over 15,000 people -

http://www.environ.ie/en/Environment/Atmosphere/AirQuality/SmokyCoalBan/News/MainBody,30689,en.htm

so Phil Hogan has put Letterkenny and other towns on the smokeless list not due to air quality but due to the number of people in the town.

I can see how this could be seen as a pre-emtive strike against future issues but see above points before slapping a plaster on an infection

Flibbles

markj2009 wrote: »

The air is smoggy from smoky coal which is still being burned by many people it seems.

It's still used because smoke free coal is useless, and we don't have piped gas around here. The only other realistic option to coal, is oil.

Senna

So will the likes of Kelly's, Tinneys etc that are based in Letterkenny stop selling normal coal, or will they just not deliver within the town boundary?
If you go into the yard will you be asked were you live before they sell you normal coal??

lizgal

Hi there
just wondering if anyone had experience of living near Moneypoint in co clare?and if any probs

muffler

lizgal wrote: »

Hi there
just wondering if anyone had experience of living near Moneypoint in co clare?and if any probs

You're in the wrong pub dear!

Kilgore__Trout

Not sure this is the best time to introduce a smokeless coal requirement. It's up to 50% more expensive and gives off considerably less heat.

I understand the concerns with the effect of coal on air quality, and agree we need to treat our environment more kindly, but given the amount of people living in and around the poverty line and the pernicious nature of the Irish climate, is now the time?

Kilgore__Trout

Senna wrote: »

So will the likes of Kelly's, Tinneys etc that are based in Letterkenny stop selling normal coal, or will they just not deliver within the town boundary?
If you go into the yard will you be asked were you live before they sell you normal coal??

Not sure how that will work Senna, but I've heard there can be hefty fines if you are caught burning it.

danniemcq

Kilgore__Trout wrote: »

Not sure how that will work Senna, but I've heard there can be hefty fines if you are caught burning it.

Ah sure that? That's from an auld bag that's been lying out the back dunno what it is

Senna

Kilgore__Trout wrote: »

Not sure how that will work Senna, but I've heard there can be hefty fines if you are caught burning it.

I don't live within the town, I'm just worried I wont be able to buy the "good stuff":D

donegal_road

Im starting to find white rocks in the fireplace after the fire has gone out, I wonder are there a few painted stones thrown into the coal to bulk it out?

On another note, there was a lot of haze this evening in the Finn Valley, wonder was it anything to do with the gorse fires up the county? I remember it being very smokey last year when the fires broke out, the wind having blown it from north of the county.

md23040

The ban has come into effect from today and it will be interesting how it pans out. The scale of the area to include rural locations to me seems really stupid– can understand if it were within a concentric circle of the town centre extending a kilometre or so.

www.greenheat.ie/userfiles/image/letterkennymap.jpg

It is ridiculous to impose fuel poverty at this particular moment in time when Ireland is trying to crawl out of the worst recession in its history and energy has never been more expensive.

Also the only alternative to coal is oil – if cheaper piped gas were available that would be acceptable enough, but this is like introducing congestion charges to Letterkenny when public transport options are non-existent or very poor.

Derry city has no smoke control ban (or if it does it's not enforced) and the area has a council population of 106,000. There never seems to be any air pollution problems in the urban centre and it shares a similar low lying topography to Letterkenny. But this is probably because many residents use natural piped gas that again costs a lot less than lighting a fire, or using a stove linked to radiators.

Also there are grants for solar and retro fit insulation, and both are available for free to any council tenant

In my opinion one of the contributory factors to the problem within Letterkenny area is probably caused by people burning rubbish in the fireplace whether it's food waste, tetra, cardboard or whatever, in order to save waste costs of putting their out bin weekly at €10+ and trying to do this every 2 weeks instead (with new rates refuse collection should be free).

Until the council can provide workable, cost effective alternatives then it won’t work IMO, especially with so many people having wood burning stoves and knowing that smokeless coal has poor output and cost inefficient.

What certainly will happen is that many smart coal merchants will up sticks and move to just outside the ban area and sell the same products as allowed yesterday.