Onlooker kicks up a stink as raw slurry is dumped from quay

June 2001

Tourists and local people fled holding their noses when a tractor towing a trailer full of slurry dumped its load into Wexford Harbour from the showpiece quays last Thursday evening.

‘I literally could not believe what I was seeing,’ said a local man who witnessed it. ‘A tractor drove up to the edge of the quay and poured a full slurry tank of waste into the water.’

He said the incident happened at 6.35 p.m., when a number of people were walking along the new-look quays, which are due to be officially opened by the Taoiseach on June 30.

‘The smell and look was stomach-churning,’ he added. ‘What a sight for visitors and locals to see! Why do we spend money trying to attract tourists to town if we are going to dump human waste in front of them, as they try to enjoy a stroll along the quay?

‘This, I might add, was done with a Corporation worker looking on, leading me to believe it was done with the sanction of the Corporation. If it had to be done, why not at 6 a.m., when there would be nobody around?’ he asked.

Town Clerk Don Curtin explained that a contractor was engaged to remove the slurry from Charlotte Street because of a blocked sewer leading to one of five outfalls into the harbour.

Adding that the slurry was dumped close to where the outfall would normally discharge, Mr Curtin did however promise that ‘it will not happen in that location again’.

‘And the timing had to do with the tides,’ he explained.

Mr Curtin also said that while the sight of a tractor and trailer dumping slurry from the quays was unacceptable, the reality was that raw sewage had been piped into the harbour for more than 200 years.

This situation would not improve until a new treatment plant, being built as part of the town’s main drainage scheme, came on stream in about two years’ time.