Residents in a Cork housing estate where raw sewage is spilling out into a children\u2019s play area are \u201cat their wits’ end\u201d trying to get the problem addressed, according to a local councillor.<\/p>\n
Independent Finbarr Harrington asked for a suspension of standing orders at a recent meeting of Cork County Council\u2019s West Cork Municipal District in order to discuss the matter.<\/p>\n
Mr Harrington said the lack of servicing of the sewage treatment plant at the Mariners View estate in Castletownbere had resulted in the plant regularly overflowing into an area where children from the estate regularly play.<\/p>\n
Mr Harrington said the estate, which comprises 40 houses and was built 20 years ago, had not yet been taken into charge by Cork County Council due to the issues with the treatment plant, which was leading to a \u201cchicken and egg situation\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe sewage treatment plant hasn\u2019t been maintained or serviced or desludged for a number of years and what\u2019s happening now is the sewage is spilling out over the top onto an area where there\u2019s children playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a compete environmental hazard, it\u2019s an ecological hazard, and it\u2019s also a health and safety hazard for the children who play there and for the houses that live there. There is a genuine worry for the people that live there that the sewage now is going to back up the pipe into their homes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Harrington said there was also a chronic stench coming from the plant when he visited on a warm day recently, which was \u201cjust horrendous\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe council desludged it a number of years ago when the council had charge of wastewater, but since\u00a0 Uisce \u00c9ireann have taken over, they have done literally nothing with it. There\u2019s red lights on all the panels, the doors are open, you can see through the fence, there\u2019s sewage spilling everywhere.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Harrington told the meeting that residents were at their \u201cwits’ end,\u201d and had written to Uisce \u00c9ireann. \u201cThey have been doing everything they can and they can\u2019t seem to get anywhere,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He requested that the council write to Uisce \u00c9ireann and ask as \u201ca matter of urgency that they get this thing back up and running, that they desludge it, and that they maintain it and look after it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI would also be asking that our environmental section and the Environmental Protection Agency get notified and that they go down there and they witness first-hand what the people have to put up with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIf an ordinary person, a household, or a farm did this they would be prosecuted straight away, and rightly so. There was a glimmer of hope a few years ago when Castletown got a new sewerage treatment plant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“This particular unit was supposed to be connected to it but unfortunately there wasn\u2019t enough money to connect it on to it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was agreed to send a letter to Uisce \u00c9ireann and to environmental section who would refer the matter to the Environmental Protection Agency if necessary.<\/p>\n
\n This article is funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents in a Cork housing estate where raw sewage is spilling out into a children\u2019s play area are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[79,63,246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-443473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-cork-news","tag-cork-county-council","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}