Greater Dublin Drainage

Carawaystick · 19-11-2011 1:26am #1

Fingal, South Dublin, Dún Laoghaire & Rathdown, Kildare and Meath Co. Councils want to build a sewerage treatment plant to deal with sewage from 700,000 people near Lusk in North Dublin. None of the sewage treated will be from Lusk, Rush, Donabate, Portrane, Skerries or Balbriggan, as they all have their own local treatment plants. ( Skerries/Balbriggan has a capacity of 60k; Rush/Portrane/Lusk/Donabate has a capacity of 65k; pop of all 5 towns is << 120k, at around 45,000)

These council geniuses reckon that despite the Ringsend plant being capable of dealing with the sewage of 2.1 Million people, it won't be enough, and sewage from Clondalkin, Tallaght, Leixlip, Cellbridge, Rathoath, Clonee, and Ashbourne should be pumped to the prime horticultural land near Lusk, rather than dealt with closer to the communities dealing with the waste.

The councils have spent six years and who knows how much money trying to build this in Portrane, and failed. I'd imagine, now that the country's broke, they'll fail in the end but not before they spend much hard earned taxation monies on their pr/consultants.

In case it wasn't clear, I'm agin this plan.

Stark · 19-11-2011 3:40am

Carawaystick wrote: »

In case it wasn't clear, I'm agin this plan.

Still not clear...

Pete_Cavan · 20-11-2011 2:30pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

Fingal, South Dublin, Dún Laoghaire & Rathdown, Kildare and Meath Co. Councils want to build a sewerage treatment plant to deal with sewage from 700,000 people near Lusk in North Dublin. None of the sewage treated will be from Lusk, Rush, Donabate, Portrane, Skerries or Balbriggan, as they all have their own local treatment plants. ( Skerries/Balbriggan has a capacity of 60k; Rush/Portrane/Lusk/Donabate has a capacity of 65k; pop of all 5 towns is << 120k, at around 45,000)

These council geniuses reckon that despite the Ringsend plant being capable of dealing with the sewage of 2.1 Million people, it won't be enough, and sewage from Clondalkin, Tallaght, Leixlip, Cellbridge, Rathoath, Clonee, and Ashbourne should be pumped to the prime horticultural land near Lusk, rather than dealt with closer to the communities dealing with the waste.

The councils have spent six years and who knows how much money trying to build this in Portrane, and failed. I'd imagine, now that the country's broke, they'll fail in the end but not before they spend much hard earned taxation monies on their pr/consultants.

In case it wasn't clear, I'm agin this plan.

There was one report done and it recommended Portrane as the most suitable site for a second large-scale municipal plant. A review of the report, completed in 2007, recommended that the plant still be located in the “northern greater Dublin area”, but not necessarily Portrane. On 10th October 2011 Fingal County Council released Greater Dublin Drainage Alternative Site Assessment - Phase One Preliminary Screening Outcomes Report which identified nine potential land parcels in which a proposed regional wastewater treatment plant could potentially be located, along with a marine outfall and an orbital drainage system. Nine land parcels have now been identified. Millions of "hard earned taxation monies" has alread been spent on their pr/consultants. The only way more will be spent is if NIMBYs like you keep bitching a about these reports and dismissing them purely because the recommendations dont ally with your own interests. Sorry mate, the needs of the entire Greater Dublin Region come before yours.

And before you say things like the other areas which this sewerage treatment plant is to serve should deal with their own waste, you should first consider that north county dublin has very little in the way of drinking water sources, with most of its water coming from Leixlip - no doubt you are happy to take their water. This is the usual small minded, me and my area are the centre of the universe thinking that is the route cause of the poor infrastructure in this country and why the decent infrastructure we do have cost the taxpayer a lot more than it should have.

In case it wasn't clear, I'm for this plan.

murphaph · 20-11-2011 10:31pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

These council geniuses reckon that despite the Ringsend plant being capable of dealing with the sewage of 2.1 Million people, it won't be enough, and sewage from Clondalkin, Tallaght, Leixlip, Cellbridge, Rathoath, Clonee, and Ashbourne should be pumped to the prime horticultural land near Lusk, rather than dealt with closer to the communities dealing with the waste.

There's such a thing called redundancy. The Ringsend plant may well be unavailable or out of action for any number of reasons (especially severe flooding causing potential problems).

Having a second large facility is not a bad idea at all IMO and as Pete mentioned-North Dublin is happy to take water from Leixlip so it should be a give and take. Realistically the treatment plant should have a marine outfall. Given that, there are not really many places it can go and Fingal is the fastest growing of the council areas.

I don't see any reasons given in your post for objecting to this plan (the bit about prime horticultural land is not serious is it? The plant would be a couple of hundred acres at most I would imagine and Fingal has already built (sh!t generating) houses on plenty of its prime horticultural land already (do sou perhaps live in something built on ex-agricultural land??) so what's the problem?

SeaSide · 22-11-2011 6:38pm

From the Fingal CoCo website:

"Fingal is fortunate to be self sufficient in terms of water supply. The Council runs two water treatment plants. The primary source of Fingal’s water is the Leixlip Treatment plant on the River Liffey. This plant provides a guaranteed output of 148 megalitres per day, although it can produce up to 168 megalitres for short periods. This equates to the daily production of enough potable water to fill 60 Olympic sized swimming pools! Of the water produced by Fingal only a half is used within the county, the rest being exported to Dublin City,South Dublin, Kildare and Meath. The other treatment plant is the recently completed Bog of the Ring plant, which produces 4 megalitres a day. This plant extracts groundwater from wells and supplements the water supply of the northern part of the County. Some parts of the county that border on the City are supplied by feeds from within Dublin City, whose water originates from Ballymore Eustace and Roundwood. The water produced by Fingal regularly meets the required EU Drinking Water quality parameters."

So Fingal is doing more than its share and it is more than a little disingenuous to compare water treatment with sewage treatment. I can tell you which one I'd rather have as a neighbour, you might prefer the latter but that is your personal taste. Whatever chance the North County had of becoming fully self sufficient in water is pretty much destroyed by the new dump where the landfill collected in Leixlip and Dublin City and Dun Laoighaire and South Dublin will be dumped? Again Fingal doing more than its fair share and Leixlip getting its quid pro quo.

In terms of redundancy this can be provided at a much cheaper cost by several smaller facilities in an n+1 configuration rather than a 1+1 configuration when the +1 is going to cost over 2bn.

It is very easy to start throwing out NIMBY labels but if you send you're dog to take a dump in my garden you and me are going to have a discussion particularly if I am cleaning up after myself (which I am). Perhaps you can share with us what's in your back yard?

Prime horticultural land has been fastidiously protected with the CoCo forbidding families houses outside designated areas so there is very little sh!t produced on these lands but if it suits them they can parachute in a monster sewage plant. Oh the irony.

The millions of hard earned tax payers money is my money too and should not have been spent just to give some Engineer / County Manager an erection.

bk · 22-11-2011 7:11pm

The thing is, Fingal Country Council, nor Dublin City Council, nor SDCC should exist.

The reality is there should be only one, a Dublin County Council. The separate councils were created by TD's who feared that a single Dublin area council would be far too powerful and would usurp their authority for the benefit of the people who live in Dublin.

The reality there is physically no space for such services in the Dublin City Council area, so such services will realistically need to be placed in neighbouring council areas with greater open land.

The rubbish with separate councils is a total waste of tax payers money due to the duplication of services, lack of scale in purchasing and leads to stupid planning decisions for estates to be built in the middle of nowhere that we saw over the last 10 years.

Pete_Cavan · 22-11-2011 11:40pm

SeaSide wrote: »

From the Fingal CoCo website:

"Fingal is fortunate to be self sufficient in terms of water supply. The Council runs two water treatment plants. The primary source of Fingal’s water is the Leixlip Treatment plant on the River Liffey. This plant provides a guaranteed output of 148 megalitres per day, although it can produce up to 168 megalitres for short periods. This equates to the daily production of enough potable water to fill 60 Olympic sized swimming pools! Of the water produced by Fingal only a half is used within the county, the rest being exported to Dublin City,South Dublin, Kildare and Meath. The other treatment plant is the recently completed Bog of the Ring plant, which produces 4 megalitres a day. This plant extracts groundwater from wells and supplements the water supply of the northern part of the County. Some parts of the county that border on the City are supplied by feeds from within Dublin City, whose water originates from Ballymore Eustace and Roundwood. The water produced by Fingal regularly meets the required EU Drinking Water quality parameters."

So Fingal is doing more than its share and it is more than a little disingenuous to compare water treatment with sewage treatment. I can tell you which one I'd rather have as a neighbour, you might prefer the latter but that is your personal taste. Whatever chance the North County had of becoming fully self sufficient in water is pretty much destroyed by the new dump where the landfill collected in Leixlip and Dublin City and Dun Laoighaire and South Dublin will be dumped? Again Fingal doing more than its fair share and Leixlip getting its quid pro quo.

Grand, except we are talking about North County Dublin, not Fingal County. Leixlip may be in Fingal but it is not in North County Dublin. North County Dublin has no chance of becoming self sufficient in water because there is no major rivers or lakes and there is limited potential for the exploitation of groundwater. My point was that attitudes like "they should deal with their own waste" are futile because, were such policies to be persued, you would find your taps running dry very soon.

In terms of redundancy this can be provided at a much cheaper cost by several smaller facilities in an n+1 configuration rather than a 1+1 configuration when the +1 is going to cost over 2bn.

No idea what you are no about here.

It is very easy to start throwing out NIMBY labels but if you send you're dog to take a dump in my garden you and me are going to have a discussion particularly if I am cleaning up after myself (which I am). Perhaps you can share with us what's in your back yard?

In my home town, Cavan, there is a landfill (which up until recently was taking waste from Dublin as well as Galway) and a 10,000 PE Waste Water Treatment Plant. While undesirable, the sad reality is these facilities are necessary for our way of life. This may be a poor reflection on our society but burying your head in the sand and saying we dont want a landfill/WWTP wont make the rubbish/shіte disappear. Some areas cant "clean up after themselves", just like some areas cant provide for themselves (eg. North County Dublin cant provide water), the best we can do is study the options available and go with the least worst option.

Prime horticultural land has been fastidiously protected with the CoCo forbidding families houses outside designated areas so there is very little sh!t produced on these lands but if it suits them they can parachute in a monster sewage plant. Oh the irony.

It wont be just parachuted in, a report to determine the most suitable site for a second large-scale municipal plant - it recommended Portrane. A review of this report was carried out and it recommended that the plant still be located in the “northern greater Dublin area”. Why is this not good enough? Have you carried out a detailed analysis of future sewer capacity requirements of Dublin and examined the ecological, geological and hydro-geological conditions of all potential sites and found conflicting evidence? Should we produce a few more reports for the sake of it and go best out of five?

dubhthach · 23-11-2011 10:56am

bk wrote: »

The thing is, Fingal Country Council, nor Dublin City Council, nor SDCC should exist.

The reality is there should be only one, a Dublin County Council. The separate councils were created by TD's who feared that a single Dublin area council would be far too powerful and would usurp their authority for the benefit of the people who live in Dublin.

The reality there is physically no space for such services in the Dublin City Council area, so such services will realistically need to be placed in neighbouring council areas with greater open land.

The rubbish with separate councils is a total waste of tax payers money due to the duplication of services, lack of scale in purchasing and leads to stupid planning decisions for estates to be built in the middle of nowhere that we saw over the last 10 years.

What's infuriating is there exists a "Dublin Regional Authority" with 30 members (drawn from the 4 councils) that meet once a month. No doubt getting expenses etc let have no power. There's a total of 9 of these "Regional Authorities" it would be better just to scrap the county/city councils and instead use the Regional Authorities for local gov.

Of course GAA politics will get in the way of that, just as well Tipperary South doesn't have their own GAA team otherwise they would be fighting the proposed merger of Tipperary North + South county councils :rolleyes:

Total of 34 council level authorities in the country at moment (29 county councils, 5 city councils)

Cardinal Richelieu · 28-11-2011 6:48pm

SeaSide wrote: »

?

Prime horticultural land has been fastidiously protected with the CoCo forbidding families houses outside designated areas so there is very little sh!t produced on these lands but if it suits them they can parachute in a monster sewage plant. Oh the irony.

.

Compare Rush 20 years ago with now and you will see that FCC have allowed the locals to build on prime horticulture land already.

Scipio76 · 21-12-2011 7:54pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

Fingal, South Dublin, Dún Laoghaire & Rathdown, Kildare and Meath Co. Councils want to build a sewerage treatment plant to deal with sewage from 700,000 people near Lusk in North Dublin. None of the sewage treated will be from Lusk, Rush, Donabate, Portrane, Skerries or Balbriggan, as they all have their own local treatment plants. ( Skerries/Balbriggan has a capacity of 60k; Rush/Portrane/Lusk/Donabate has a capacity of 65k; pop of all 5 towns is << 120k, at around 45,000)

These council geniuses reckon that despite the Ringsend plant being capable of dealing with the sewage of 2.1 Million people, it won't be enough, and sewage from Clondalkin, Tallaght, Leixlip, Cellbridge, Rathoath, Clonee, and Ashbourne should be pumped to the prime horticultural land near Lusk, rather than dealt with closer to the communities dealing with the waste.

The councils have spent six years and who knows how much money trying to build this in Portrane, and failed. I'd imagine, now that the country's broke, they'll fail in the end but not before they spend much hard earned taxation monies on their pr/consultants.

In case it wasn't clear, I'm agin this plan.

The Ringsend plant is already operating at approximately 20% over its design capacity. There is an upgrade planned for this plant but they have limited scope to extend capacity beyond covering the shortfall for both engineering and contractual reasons. Expansion on this scale is a non-starter.

As for the existing plants, Balbriggan/Skerries has a design capacity of 70,000PE and Portrane/Donabate/Rush/Lusk will have a capacity of 65,000PE when it goes live. Both plants are at approximately 50% of their design capacity and make provision for increases anticipated over the next 20 years. Remember these plants are built on the basis of population equivalent (PE) not the actual population as this does not cover non-domestic loading. They do not have sufficient spare capacity to cater for projected future needs beyond their own catchment areas.

The proposed plant will predominantly treat sewage from the Fingal catchment area. It is also needed as there is still significant population growth expected in the GDA as well as the fact that if we fail to provide the additional capacity then this will prevent business investment where discharge licences are required.

Scipio76 · 21-12-2011 7:58pm

SeaSide wrote: »

Prime horticultural land has been fastidiously protected with the CoCo forbidding families houses outside designated areas so there is very little sh!t produced on these lands but if it suits them they can parachute in a monster sewage plant. Oh the irony.

The millions of hard earned tax payers money is my money too and should not have been spent just to give some Engineer / County Manager an erection.

A plant of this size would not take up much land. I think we could survive the resulting reduction in the carrot crop yield.

Scipio76 · 21-12-2011 8:00pm

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Grand, except we are talking about North County Dublin, not Fingal County. Leixlip may be in Fingal but it is not in North County Dublin. North County Dublin has no chance of becoming self sufficient in water because there is no major rivers or lakes and there is limited potential for the exploitation of groundwater. My point was that attitudes like "they should deal with their own waste" are futile because, were such policies to be persued, you would find your taps running dry very soon.

The Leixlip plant is actually located in the SDCC area however Fingal CC own and operate it. It's like Vartry in Wicklow which is owned and operated by DCC and actually sells water to Wicklow CC.

Carawaystick · 22-12-2011 2:37am

Scipio76 wrote: »

The Ringsend plant is already operating at approximately 20% over its design capacity. There is an upgrade planned for this plant but they have limited scope to extend capacity beyond covering the shortfall for both engineering and contractual reasons. Expansion on this scale is a non-starter.

As for the existing plants, Balbriggan/Skerries has a design capacity of 70,000PE and Portrane/Donabate/Rush/Lusk will have a capacity of 65,000PE when it goes live. Both plants are at approximately 50% of their design capacity and make provision for increases anticipated over the next 20 years. Remember these plants are built on the basis of population equivalent (PE) not the actual population as this does not cover non-domestic loading. They do not have sufficient spare capacity to cater for projected future needs beyond their own catchment areas.

The proposed plant will predominantly treat sewage from the Fingal catchment area. It is also needed as there is still significant population growth expected in the GDA as well as the fact that if we fail to provide the additional capacity then this will prevent business investment where discharge licences are required.

The existing plants in Skerries, (Portrane), Swords and Mahahide cater for the population in the Dublin North part of Fingal. The population in the Blanch part of the county should have to deal with their own crap locally; the future population in Balgriffin and the areas immediately north of this should deal with their own crap.

(I'm not sure if Portrane is commissioned, but the giant septic tanks of Lusk stick enough for long enough)

The people outside the Fingal area altogether should deal with their own crap.

The people in the Greater Dublin Area with no sewage treatment plant should have the highest priority in getting new sewage treatment, rather than wasting scarce german resources on building unnecessary plant in inappropriate locations.

Cardinal Richelieu · 22-12-2011 1:58pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

The existing plants in Skerries, (Portrane), Swords and Mahahide cater for the population in the Dublin North part of Fingal. The population in the Blanch part of the county should have to deal with their own crap locally; the future population in Balgriffin and the areas immediately north of this should deal with their own crap.

(I'm not sure if Portrane is commissioned, but the giant septic tanks of Lusk stick enough for long enough)

The people outside the Fingal area altogether should deal with their own crap.

The people in the Greater Dublin Area with no sewage treatment plant should have the highest priority in getting new sewage treatment, rather than wasting scarce german resources on building unnecessary plant in inappropriate locations.

Well if you were to follow the argument of the objectors Lusk should have its own local plant as should Rush rather than pump it to Portrane via Rush which will happen next year. Would you be happy with treatment works in Lusk for Lusk waste only?

Pete_Cavan · 22-12-2011 8:18pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

The existing plants in Skerries, (Portrane), Swords and Mahahide cater for the population in the Dublin North part of Fingal. The population in the Blanch part of the county should have to deal with their own crap locally; the future population in Balgriffin and the areas immediately north of this should deal with their own crap.

(I'm not sure if Portrane is commissioned, but the giant septic tanks of Lusk stick enough for long enough)

The people outside the Fingal area altogether should deal with their own crap.

The people in the Greater Dublin Area with no sewage treatment plant should have the highest priority in getting new sewage treatment, rather than wasting scarce german resources on building unnecessary plant in inappropriate locations.

Did you actually read any of the other posts on this thread or do you just drop in, rant and leave? Have you anything to back up your claim about the "inappropriate location"? And if you want to talk about wasting scarce resources, building individual treatment plants for every area instead of a large shared facility is the very definition of this.

Carawaystick · 23-12-2011 12:49am

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Well if you were to follow the argument of the objectors Lusk should have its own local plant as should Rush rather than pump it to Portrane via Rush which will happen next year. Would you be happy with treatment works in Lusk for Lusk waste only?

I'd be fine with the plant being built in Portrane being built in Lusk, and taking sewage from the same 4 towns. It would sure as sh1te stink less than the current sewage treatment system in Lusk.

Pete,
The wwtp in Ringsend is about 18hectares, with a capacity of 2.1million units
the wwtp in Little island is about 6hectares with a capacity of 413thousand units
the wwtp in Mutton Island is 2.4hectares with a capacity of 190thousand units

The proposed plant in Fingal is to be 20hectares, with a capacity of 700thousand units; however some of the sites put forward for selection were more than 3 times the size;
If you scale from Mutton Island or Little island, then the site should be about 10 hectares, and smaller if you tried the Ringsend type of capacity/land use ratio.

So it follows that the land take for the planned scheme is excessive, compared to already achieved.

The planned scheme will pump raw sewage a large distance to be treated, which will cost more to pump from Dublin city in it;s raw form than as treated effluent, than to treat it nearer it's source of generation, and the pump it to the outfall.

The other large sewage treatment plants, in Dublin city, Cork and Belfast are located in heavy industrial zones, not areas zoned for rural use; this is the heart of the inappropriateness. The planning board refused permission for an incinerator to be built beside a light industrial zoned area at Courtlough before, on the grounds that an area zoned ru was not the place for a waste disposal area.

I've read the other posts. People aren't upset about dealing with their own sewage, but from far flung places, I'd say if your town was going to be lumbered with a new plant dealing with sewage from Monaghan or Longford etc; or a new dump starting up to take waste from Dublin city would be less appealing.

Regarding the water supply situation, I'd say (I've no actual evidence for this) that a lot of the industry in the north Fingal area have their own wells, given the amount of aquifers in the area, and the cost commercial users of waters have to pay to use the fluoridated public supply. (tomatoes plants use a lot of water -- I'd say it'd be hard to quantify the amount of water usage in the north Fingal area given this)

Scipio, the Ringsend plant is being increased from 1.6 to 2.1million units, which is a bit more than just covering the shortfall ( 31%)

There is no way there will be 50% growth in Balbriggan, Skerries, Lusk Donabate or Rush in the next 20 years.

The Skerries plant was and the Donabate plant is planned to connect to the existing sewage infrastructure of those towns they serve. It is hardly beyond the wit of man to add treatment capacity to communities in D15, Kildare, South Dublin, Meath etc to deal with their own waste, part of the proximity principle.

One last thing, Fingal adopted a plan in 2010 to build a sludge hub in Kilshane, so their plan of building a huge wwtp in Lusk or Rush would involve pumping sewage there and trucking sludge back south to Kilshane... integrated thinking at it's best.

Scipio76 · 24-12-2011 11:22am

Carawaystick wrote: »

The wwtp in Ringsend is about 18hectares, with a capacity of 2.1million units
the wwtp in Little island is about 6hectares with a capacity of 413thousand units
the wwtp in Mutton Island is 2.4hectares with a capacity of 190thousand units

The proposed plant in Fingal is to be 20hectares, with a capacity of 700thousand units; however some of the sites put forward for selection were more than 3 times the size;
If you scale from Mutton Island or Little island, then the site should be about 10 hectares, and smaller if you tried the Ringsend type of capacity/land use ratio.

So it follows that the land take for the planned scheme is excessive, compared to already achieved.

That's simply ridiculous. Mutton Island and Ringsend are very tight sites and this impacts on plant design. Given a green field alternative without the same space restrictions and you can save on construction cost of the the plant. For example, Ringsend has 24 SBR basins stacked in several levels. That is a design that would only ever arise from necessity.

Trying to relate area to treatment capacity is nonsensical.

Carawaystick wrote: »

The planned scheme will pump raw sewage a large distance to be treated, which will cost more to pump from Dublin city in it;s raw form than as treated effluent, than to treat it nearer it's source of generation, and the pump it to the outfall.

Pumping costs would pale to insignificance in comparison to the economy of scale savings in going for a single large plant as opposed to multiple samll plants.

Carawaystick wrote: »

The other large sewage treatment plants, in Dublin city, Cork and Belfast are located in heavy industrial zones, not areas zoned for rural use; this is the heart of the inappropriateness. The planning board refused permission for an incinerator to be built beside a light industrial zoned area at Courtlough before, on the grounds that an area zoned ru was not the place for a waste disposal area.

The Shanganagh plant has a capacity of 188,000PE, third in the country behind Ringsend and Cork. It is right in the middle of a densely populated area and lies approximately 500 metres from the Vico Road, the most expensive real estate in Ireland.

Carawaystick wrote: »

I've read the other posts. People aren't upset about dealing with their own sewage, but from far flung places, I'd say if your town was going to be lumbered with a new plant dealing with sewage from Monaghan or Longford etc; or a new dump starting up to take waste from Dublin city would be less appealing.

NIMBYism results in our paying over the odds for infrastructure. There is no engineering basis for your objections.

Incidentally I've been at the existing plant in Lusk. To compare that to a plant built to modern standards such as the new plant in Portrane is completely misleading.

Carawaystick wrote: »

Regarding the water supply situation, I'd say (I've no actual evidence for this) that a lot of the industry in the north Fingal area have their own wells, given the amount of aquifers in the area, and the cost commercial users of waters have to pay to use the fluoridated public supply. (tomatoes plants use a lot of water -- I'd say it'd be hard to quantify the amount of water usage in the north Fingal area given this)

They don't. The vast majority of industry do not have their own wells.

Carawaystick wrote: »

Scipio, the Ringsend plant is being increased from 1.6 to 2.1million units, which is a bit more than just covering the shortfall ( 31%)

A 31% capacity increase would bring it slightly above its capacity only slightly above its current operating load. That's exactly what I said. The spare capacity would be hopelessly insufficient for future requirements in the abscence of further capacity being provided elsewhere.

Carawaystick wrote: »

There is no way there will be 50% growth in Balbriggan, Skerries, Lusk Donabate or Rush in the next 20 years.

Even in a depressed economy 50% growth over 20 years would be modest. Plus, not having any spare capacity available would prevent these areas ever being considered for investment by private industry.

Carawaystick wrote: »

The Skerries plant was and the Donabate plant is planned to connect to the existing sewage infrastructure of those towns they serve. It is hardly beyond the wit of man to add treatment capacity to communities in D15, Kildare, South Dublin, Meath etc to deal with their own waste, part of the proximity principle.

There is no such thing as a proximity principle. Economies of scale in wastewater treatment infrastructure are significant and unless there are particular geographical or geotechnical problems associated with the area in question pumping of sewage is relatively cheap.

Pandering to local concerns has no engineering basis, it is a purely political consideration. To portray it as anything else has no basis.

Carawaystick wrote: »

One last thing, Fingal adopted a plan in 2010 to build a sludge hub in Kilshane, so their plan of building a huge wwtp in Lusk or Rush would involve pumping sewage there and trucking sludge back south to Kilshane... integrated thinking at it's best.

Firstly the Kilshane plant is not intended to cater for the proposed "super plant". It is only planned to cater for the sludge produced at the existing facilities at Skerries, Portrane, Malahide, Swords, etc. The proposed plant at Lusk would have on site final processing of sludge as the economics of trasportation to Kilshane would not stand up in the way that they do for the existing facilities.

Cardinal Richelieu · 24-12-2011 5:00pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

Regarding the water supply situation, I'd say (I've no actual evidence for this) that a lot of the industry in the north Fingal area have their own wells, given the amount of aquifers in the area, and the cost commercial users of waters have to pay to use the fluoridated public supply. (tomatoes plants use a lot of water -- I'd say it'd be hard to quantify the amount of water usage in the north Fingal area given this)

Ok I am going to have a stab at this part. Do you actually know how many tomato growers are left in this area? Roughly 5 and they would use a combination of mains, bore and water recovery from glasshouse roofs do the last method is not always advisable due to the risk of disease. The more high tech growers would have a water recycle system with a certain % water loss through transpiration.

Field crop irrigation during dry spells would be from bore and mains with some extraction from the small local rivers. I would be concerned with the objectors group plan for a series of local treatment plants in NCD releasing treated waste into the already small rivers in NCD with some rivers having more than one treatment plant thus increasing the microbial load even more. Then 10 miles down the river, farmers as per there normal practice extracting water from the river for direct irrigation or to top up an existing field reservoir. Surely that would be more of a threat to the NCD horticulture industry?

Carawaystick · 28-12-2011 1:57am

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Field crop irrigation during dry spells would be from bore and mains with some extraction from the small local rivers. I would be concerned with the objectors group plan for a series of local treatment plants in NCD ... surely that would be more of a threat to the NCD horticulture industry?

All the towns in NCD have treatment plants in place or in the case of Rush, Lusk, Portrane and Donabate under construction.
There would be no other plants built to deal with sewage from NCD, It's all being treated locally. It's sewage from Clondalkin, Meath, Kildare, Blanch etc that's the issue.

[\quote]

[\quote=scipio]
The figure of growth was for population growth. It won't be 50% over 20 years.

There is a general EU rule that waste be treated locally, called the proximity principle. see http://ecologic.eu/download/projekte/1900-1949/1921-1922/1921-1922_background_paper_waste_en.PDF
section 1.2.2

The current fingal sludge management plan adopted in 2010 designates Kilshane as the site for the treatment of sludge from sewage. the greater Dublin drainage scheme was going on before this plan was adopted by fingal, so either the council haven't a clue or it is the plan.

You seem fairly certain about the proposed plant being in Lusk, if it was in Cloughran, how would the logistics of getting to Kilshane stack up?

Scipio76 · 28-12-2011 10:52am

Carawaystick wrote: »

There is a general EU rule that waste be treated locally, called the proximity principle. see http://ecologic.eu/download/projekte/1900-1949/1921-1922/1921-1922_background_paper_waste_en.PDF
section 1.2.2

The current fingal sludge management plan adopted in 2010 designates Kilshane as the site for the treatment of sludge from sewage. the greater Dublin drainage scheme was going on before this plan was adopted by fingal, so either the council haven't a clue or it is the plan.

You seem fairly certain about the proposed plant being in Lusk, if it was in Cloughran, how would the logistics of getting to Kilshane stack up?

Firstly the document you have referenced focuses on solid waste, i.e. your household refuse, not wastewater treatment.

Secondly, were we even to apply this principle to the question at hand, the confinement of wastewater treatment to the level of local management you seem to favour is not supported by either technical or economic best practice. Never mind the fact that you oppose coordination of services between neighbouring local authorities, you seem to want Fingal County Council sub-divided with towns and villages providing infrastructure strictly for their own needs. This is a very expensive way in which to deliver services as all savings arising from economies of scale are lost.

As for the proposed sludge hub in Kilshane, firstly availability of capital means that if this is to happen it probably won't be before 2020. As the proposed super plant is still just that, a proposal, Fingal are obliged to plan their sludge management on the basis that it will not be available to them. Were it to be built my guess would be that Kilshane would not be built and the super plant would cater for the sludge management needs of Fingal.

On your query on locations, the issue regarding Kilshane is a moot point. If the super plant happens anywhere in Fingal within the medium term then I would expect Kilshane not to happen and the super plant to cover the sludge hub needs of Fingal. If the plant was in Cloughran as opposed to Lusk this would be no different. Bear in mind that dewatered sludge is presently transported over long distances for lime stabilisation and land spreading in many parts of the country (crossing many county boundaries in the process) so the economics of a few miles between alternate sites in Fingal have little relevance.

I'm presuming you're from Lusk hence your opposition to the proposed GDA plant. Do you mind me asking what your main concerns regarding this plant are?

dubhthach · 28-12-2011 1:40pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

I've read the other posts. People aren't upset about dealing with their own sewage, but from far flung places, I'd say if your town was going to be lumbered with a new plant dealing with sewage from Monaghan or Longford etc; or a new dump starting up to take waste from Dublin city would be less appealing.

The scheme is for County Dublin, a chunk of Kildare and a sliver of Meath. See map here:

Saying that it's taking waste from Monaghan let alone Longford is scare-mongering and ties in with general debate about the scheme which seems to conflate "The Pale" (for want of a better term) with the entire province of Leinster.

Here's a 9 page document on the "Greater Dublin Strategic Drainage Study" the central plank of course of the study would be that the population within the study area would grow from:
1,489,962 (prediction for 2011 when report was written) to 2,054,401 in 2031 or an increase of 68%

Cardinal Richelieu · 28-12-2011 5:50pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

All the towns in NCD have treatment plants in place or in the case of Rush, Lusk, Portrane and Donabate under construction.
There would be no other plants built to deal with sewage from NCD, It's all being treated locally. It's sewage from Clondalkin, Meath, Kildare, Blanch etc that's the issue.

Garristown, Rolestown, Oldtown, Ballyboughal, The Naul? They all have treatment plants?

Cardinal Richelieu · 28-12-2011 6:11pm

dubhthach wrote: »

The scheme is for County Dublin, a chunk of Kildare and a sliver of Meath. See map here:

Saying that it's taking waste from Monaghan let alone Longford is scare-mongering and ties in with general debate about the scheme which seems to conflate "The Pale" (for want of a better term) with the entire province of Leinster.

Here's a 9 page document on the "Greater Dublin Strategic Drainage Study" the central plank of course of the study would be that the population within the study area would grow from:
1,489,962 (prediction for 2011 when report was written) to 2,054,401 in 2031 or an increase of 68%

In defence of Carawaystick I think you totally misread their post, if you read over the previous posts you will see they responded to Pete-Cavan who in an earlier post indicated he was based in Cavan(no surprise there:D) In the below post Carawaystick is refering to Cavan not Dublin.

Carawaystick wrote: »

I've read the other posts. People aren't upset about dealing with their own sewage, but from far flung places, I'd say if your town was going to be lumbered with a new plant dealing with sewage from Monaghan or Longford etc; or a new dump starting up to take waste from Dublin city would be less appealing.

In no way was Carawaystick scaremongering that the GDDS would be taking waste from Monaghan or Longford, only asking Pete how he would feel about Cavan having to take waste from Monaghan or Longford.

dubhthach · 28-12-2011 6:49pm

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

In no way was Carawaystick scaremongering that the GDDS would be taking waste from Monaghan or Longford, only asking Pete how he would feel about Cavan having to take waste from Monaghan or Longford.

Fair enough, in which case I apologise to Carawaystick, having a sick Two year old in the house can cause plenty of distractions that's for sure!

Carawaystick · 30-12-2011 4:02am

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Garristown, Rolestown, Oldtown, Ballyboughal, The Naul? They all have treatment plants?

My understanding is they all have treatment; of some description.
I'm assuming/guessing that Rolestown is dealt with in Swords,

I think Garristown and the Naul is dealt with in the Skeries plant, I can check the rest, but so can you.
I'm (without checking) fairly sure the plan is to pipe the low amount on sewage to the plants at Swords, Skerries or Portrane;

None( or even all) of the above come close to the magnitude of the 700k unit size of the proposed plant,

Dubhtach, Richelieu; glad to see the clarification; I was conscious typing to reply to Pete C re the localisation of waste.

Your excellency( If I may call you so(Cardinal Richeleu)) the map you've linked to has a link to Wicklow, but the gdd (greater Dublin drainage) denied any waste from Wicklow would come to them.
The area of the Meath Coast is not to supply sewage, and the rest of the boundaries in Meath are straight line boundaries, compared to the curves shown on the linked map.

Regarding Scipio's posts,
sludge is solid waste, so the proximity principle applies.

Would you not think treatment of sewage close to the source of it would be better? I'd imagine that it would.

Regarding the whole Sludge treatment issue, either the plan as adopted was correct, or the was wrong, in which case, pretty much any plan by the coco could be seen as wrong.

If anyone has a link to how the green Study area was decided upon; it'd be grand.

Scipio76 · 30-12-2011 12:58pm

Carawaystick wrote: »

Regarding Scipio's posts,
sludge is solid waste, so the proximity principle applies.

Would you not think treatment of sewage close to the source of it would be better? I'd imagine that it would.

Regarding the whole Sludge treatment issue, either the plan as adopted was correct, or the was wrong, in which case, pretty much any plan by the coco could be seen as wrong.

If anyone has a link to how the green Study area was decided upon; it'd be grand.

Sorry Carawaystick but your characterisation sludge waste as being solid waste along the lines of refuse is wrong. Sludge is a biosolid and the means of processing and manner of end use for a biosolid is very different from that which would be sent to a typical recycling centre or landfill site.

On the question of treatment close to source it very much depends on the characteristics of the catchment area. Apart from often being hugely more expensive, to try and carry out all stages of treatment and disposal within the immediate area where the sewage is generated would in many cases simply not be possible.

The GDA is a special case in that, apart from the area already served by the Ringsend plant, it is the only location within the country with such a high population concentration within such a small area. That is something that cannot be ignored in designing the collection and treatment infrastructure required to serve the area. In the Irish context for a PE of 700,000 you would usually be looking at a much larger area and as such the option of conveying sewage to a single location in raw form would not be feasible. As such you would have multiple plants dispersed over a wide area. The reason for not doing this for the GDA is the huge economies of scale achievable in constructing a single plant.

In counties where populations are more dispersed and conveying raw sewage to a single location is not possible normal practice is to have a sludge treatment hub. In this scenario the various plants around the county will treat sewage to deliver a discharged effluent of normal standard and the sludge removed will be generally be treated to a point where the dry solids range from 18% to 25% (smaller plants can be lower, e.g. 8-10%, where tankering costs are not high enough to necessitate dewatering). This sludge is then trucked in skips to a sludge hub for final processing. The sludge is usually part of the treatment plant serving the largest urban area within the county unless in rare circumstances where the location of this plant results in excessive transportation costs. Final processing usually involves thermal drying of the sludge to approximately 90% dry solids in the form of pellets. This end product is then land spread as fertilizer. Some examples of plants which serve this purpose for their respective counties are Naas, Dundalk, Limerick and Clonmel. In other counties dewatered sludge is lime stablised for land spreading or composted.

In all of the above examples the common thread is that the sludge is almost never treated and disposed of in one location. It is either trasnported during the treatment process for final processing or transported to a designated land bank (very often in a different county) for land spreading.

Just on Fingal's Kilshane plan, planning for this predates the GDA plan and if GDA happens it will be redundant. In any event talk of local authorities may well soon be outdated. The governments plans for a semi-state water company would also cover wastewater treatment and the local authorities will be out of the equation in the same way as they were when the NRA took over national roads. If you look at the Dept of the Environment's latest water investment programme it is divided up by river basin district as opposed to by local authority as it always was in the past.

The GDA plan does invlove a much greater concentration of the treatment process but as I said this arises due to the unique characteristics of the catchment area and the opportunity to achieve huge economies of scale in terms of both construction and operation costs. The end product will probably be used across the country. In response to your question about whether treatment of sewage close to source would be better I would not necessarily agree for the reason that once you go beyond the most basic considerations and assess engineering and economic considerations they often do not support this proposition. My opinion is that the most cost effective means would be best.

On the selection of location for the plant there are a number of factors. The first is deciding upon the optimum location to which to convey raw sewage. On this issue a coastal location will most likely be at a lower level thus reducing pumping costs.

The second is the disposal of treated effluent. This will be achieved via a sea outfall pipeline so the closer you are to the coast the shorter the pipeline (lower construction cost) and the less likely pumping will be required (the IMF haven't asked us to pay bills for gravity yet). Discharging into the sea as opposed to rivers has other advantages also in that you have a much bigger receiving body of water and therefore vastly greater powers of dilution. That means that for high volumes of sewage treatment will most likely be to normal standards. Discharging into a river (which may be a raw water source for drinking water supplies) may well lead to much tighter standards than normal on coliforms or nutrients due to the inability of the receiving water course to adequately dilute the effluent.

Lastly, and not leastly we have the political considerations and this is where I have no more experience or expertise than yourself. Why the Portrane site was abandoned I don't know. I read the Irish Times article where they said this was not down to local political considerations but I have no idea whether this is true or not. Certainly the list of possible locations did seem to read a bit like Lusk, Lusk, Lusk or Lusk but bear in mind it was only ever going to be a coastal location so you can rule Meath, Kildare, West Dublin, etc. out of consideration immediately.

If you don't mind me asking, are you living in the Lusk area? And if so what would be your primary concerns about the plant being located there?

Cardinal Richelieu · 30-12-2011 6:25pm

Scipio76 wrote: »

Certainly the list of possible locations did seem to read a bit like Lusk, Lusk, Lusk or Lusk but bear in mind it was only ever going to be a coastal location so you can rule Meath, Kildare, West Dublin, etc. out of consideration immediately.

If you don't mind me asking, are you living in the Lusk area? And if so what would be your primary concerns about the plant being located there?

Meath has a coastline, just putting that out there.

This may be a stupid question but looking at the maps of the 9 sites, how do they come up with the site shapes? I understand they need a site of 20hectares with 6 hectares of that been covered by the build yet the sites named range from 32ha to 104ha for the Tyrellstown Little Site with the sites not following existing field boundaries.

http://www.greaterdublindrainage.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Plans_021111_Aerial_Tyrrelstown.pdf

Also will they be purchasing the entire site named or just 20ha of the most suitable site with whatever access needed?

Scipio76 · 30-12-2011 7:28pm

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Meath has a coastline, just putting that out there.

This may be a stupid question but looking at the maps of the 9 sites, how do they come up with the site shapes? I understand they need a site of 20hectares with 6 hectares of that been covered by the build yet the sites named range from 32ha to 104ha for the Tyrellstown Little Site with the sites not following existing field boundaries.

http://www.greaterdublindrainage.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Plans_021111_Aerial_Tyrrelstown.pdf

Also will they be purchasing the entire site named or just 20ha of the most suitable site with whatever access needed?

I honestly don't know. It just says land parcels were sought in excess of 20ha. I don't know how this was done or the reasoning behind the variation in size.

Cardinal Richelieu · 22-03-2012 4:57pm

The Sunday Times had a piece last weekend from ex Green Party TD Trevor Sargent about basically what he is up to now. Trevor mentioned that quite a few Local Dublin North Green Party members were involved in stopping the Treatment plant and that reed beds would solve the need for a treatment plant. Simple really:rolleyes:. Does anyone have figures for the amount of land mass you would need for reed bed filtration if you were to apply it to a large section of NCD to reduce the need for a new Waste Water plant?

Carawaystick · 23-03-2012 3:02am

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

The Sunday Times had a piece last weekend from ex Green Party TD Trevor Sargent about basically what he is up to now. Trevor mentioned that quite a few Local Dublin North Green Party members were involved in stopping the Treatment plant and that reed beds would solve the need for a treatment plant. Simple really:rolleyes:. Does anyone have figures for the amount of land mass you would need for reed bed filtration if you were to apply it to a large section of NCD to reduce the need for a new Waste Water plant?

NCD has it's WWTP under control. Its Dublin city and the D15 and Meath/Kildare areas looking to have their waste treated in NCD that's the main issue.

In answer to your question lots of reed beds, much more than would be palatable....

Anyhow. Fingal Co.Co told me they will not publish the methodology used to evaluate the 9 land parcels under consideration.
They also only have Archaeological and flooding data under consideration, and have not considered any of the 10,000 submissions made by the public to consider the most suitable site for a 20 hectare site of land in theses parcels.

They also only have documents from 2005 to estimate the cost of the project. sher nothin's changed since then.

Scipio76 · 24-03-2012 12:41pm

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

The Sunday Times had a piece last weekend from ex Green Party TD Trevor Sargent about basically what he is up to now. Trevor mentioned that quite a few Local Dublin North Green Party members were involved in stopping the Treatment plant and that reed beds would solve the need for a treatment plant. Simple really:rolleyes:. Does anyone have figures for the amount of land mass you would need for reed bed filtration if you were to apply it to a large section of NCD to reduce the need for a new Waste Water plant?

A reed bed treatment plant to serve a population equivalent of 750,000? About the same land mass as the Ukraine. Whoever suggested that doesn't have a breeze what they're on about.

Greater Dublin Drainage

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