Cooleen ‘mountain’ is ready for road
WORK is expected to start as soon as next week to move the mountain of rock and silt that has been piled up on the shore at Cooleen as work on dredging Dingle’s inner harbour progresses.
The removal work will be welcomed by residents in Cooleen who were none too happy to have their sea view obscured by a growing pile of dredge material that is close to 20m high in places.
The Department of the Marine already has a licence to move the mountain to Kerry County Council’s landfill site in Milltown, but the preferred option is to use the mostly rock dredge material from around the pier on the ongoing Tralee to Dingle road-widening project.
This will require a licence from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and testing to ensure the rock and silt isn’t contaminated by anti-foul or other hazardous materials. However, it is understood that the EPA is favourably disposed to granting approval and the Dept of the Marine is confident of being issued the required permit by next week. All going well, the removal, by road, of the Cooleen mountain should begin very shortly after that.
Meanwhile, the dredging project is continuing pretty much on schedule. Dredging of the inner harbour and a manoeuvring area for boats of up to 110m at the head of the pier is expected to finish next week and the dredgers will then move on to deepening and widening the channel from the pier to Burnham.
It is estimated that a little over 100,000 tonnes of silt will be dredged from the channel and this is to be dumped at sea off Dún Síon Head. The location of the dump site has been the focus of an amount of controversy, largely due to concerns about the environmental impact and potential damage to lobster fishing grounds. An apparent error in the wording of the dumping permit added confusion to the controversy.
The initial dumping permit granted by the EPA last November indicated that the dump site for 106,000 tonnes of uncontaminated silt would be approximately 2km south of Dún Síon Head. However, when dump site marker buoys were put in place much closer to land, locals in Dún Síon brought their concerns to the EPA and the licence application was re-examined. Last month the EPA gave notice of an amendment to the Dumping at Sea Permit saying: “To clarify the consented location… and remove any ambiguity, the location of dumping is to be amended from approx 2km south of Doonshean Head… to approx 0.5km south of Doonsheane.