Letter of appeal against cutting the mid-Kildare Aquifer An Taisce, The National Trust for Ireland c/o Tony Lowes, Chairman, Natural Environment Group Allihies, County Cork Tel 353 +27 + 73025 Fax 353 + 27 + 73131 Mr. G. Kremlis, European Commission, Directorate General XI B.3 Legal Affairs, Rue de la Loi 200, B-1049 Bruxelles, BELGIUM 20 April, 1998 Re: De-watering of the mid-Kildare Aquifer and its effects on Pollardstown Fen, a proposed Irish Special Area of Conservation (Site Code 000396) Dear Sir; The Commission has been notified of the Irish Government’s designation of Pollardstown Fen in County Kildare as a Special Area of Conservation. The integrity of this site is threatened by the design of the Kildare By-Pass, approved by the Minister for the Environment on 22 January, 1996, as this involves a three kilometer cutting into the mid-Kildare aquifer, the largest and most important gravel aquifer in Ireland and the major source of water for Pollardstown Fen. The Environmental Impact Assessment prepared for this development did not properly assess the impact on the aquifer of this de-watering and was inadequate in considering the problems involved in mitigating proposals. These contentions are more than substantiated in the report from the Office of Public Works we have sent you. You will have received two documents from our organization to substantiate the fact that community funding is to be used to the detriment of the natural environment at a site now protected under the Habitats Directive as well as the Ramsar Convention. 1) Assessment of the Environmental Impact Study on the Kildare By- Pass, in particular an Assessment of the County Council’s Proposal to De-water the Mid-Kildare Aquifer and the impact on the Pollardstown Fen and the Grand Canal, David Ball and others, Office of Public Works, November, 1993. [By registered post.] 2) Environmental Impact Assessment – Kildare By-Pass Motorway: Town Planning Aspects by Philip Jones, Kildare Senior Planner. See: Amenity, 3.A Impact on the Curragh. [By fax with the Government Order of 19 January and the letter of authorization to Kildare County Council of 23 January, 1996] It is alleged in these documents that the design of the proposed motorway was cut into the mid-Kildare aquifer to ensure the amenities of private interests at the expense of the environmental balance and we found nothing to disprove this contention. However, we feel obliged to bring to the attention of the Commission that our own investigations lead us to believe that a further imperative in the proposed excavation was the desire of the Irish authorities to obtain sufficient aggregate without further expense to provide material to raise the road over the national railway line south of Kildare as the right to tunnel under the line was refused by the national railway on the grounds of safety and disruption. (1) Office of Public Works Report The simple cross section drawing prepared by the Office of Public works and included in their Report as part of Section 2.7 shows clearly the effects of the lowering of the water table consequent on the proposed development and its effect on the fen. It further indicates the insignificance of the Minister’s decision to lessen the depth of the cut by two meters. There will be both a diminution in the supply of water and a lowering of the water level. This is because the gradient of flow has been reduced and because the groundwater divide would be moved 2 to 3 kilometers closer to the Fen, severely reducing the catchment zone supplying the fen. The scope of the EIA which was completed was restricted to determination of the impact of the proposed preferred route and design. And even given that potentially fatal limitation, the Terms of Reference were not met by the work programme and insufficient work was done to obtain the necessary data. S.I. No. 221 of 1988 European Communities (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Motorways) Regulations, Regulation 4 subsection 3A states: An environmental impact study under section 3 shall contain “an outline of the main alternative motorway alignments (if any) studied and an indication of the main reasons for selecting the proposed alignment, taking into account the environmental effects.” This does not appear to have been done in relation to groundwater. Further, the volume of water which will be extracted is given as 5,500,000 gallons per day (mgd). This would be sufficient for a town of 126,000 people at 200 liters per day per person. Under Irish SI 349 1989 Schedule 1 if this was a proposed drilled water supply the EIA threshold would be 1,100,000 gallons per day (mgd). As the OPW Report notes: “the proposed rate of groundwater removal from the aquifer to keep the cutting dry is five times the threshold above which an EIS is required for a public water supply.” The OPW did not have confidence that "the drilling and testing programme that has been carried out provides sufficient or adequate information to formulate the conceptual model and provide an input into the mathematical model used to predict the impact of the proposed de- watering on the groundwater flow feeding Pollardstown Fen." The authors of the report suggest that the mathematical model itself contains a fundamental fatal flaw that renders it invalid regardless of the research undertaken. They point out that the model was designed to prevent any serious impact on Pollardstown bring derived from running the model. The design of the model creates a 'No Flow' boundary along the fen's perimeter, in effect isolating the fen from the model. By mathematically fixing this boundary the edge of the fen acts like a hinge in the model: no matter how much water is drained from the Curragh aquifer the water level in this model of the fen will not be affected. Water levels elsewhere can go up or down but the water table remains at a predetermined fixed level along the edge of the fen. This fails to reflect the realities of the hydrology of the aquifer. In regard to the mitigation measures proposed the Report notes that a permanent groundwater injection or recharge scheme of this scale and precision has not been attempted in Ireland before, and experience elsewhere suggests such a scheme will be expensive and fraught with technical difficulties. No attempt has been made to assess the environmental impact of such amelioration measures on either the Fen or the Curragh. The Report calls these proposals “inadequate in terms of concept, design, construction, maintenance, monitoring, management, and costs”. Their Report concluded that it would be “imprudent to base a mathematical model on such sparse and inadequately supported aquifer discharge data - particularly when the predictions of this model are used to give assurances about only small changes in the groundwater flow to a Fen of International importance.” “The OPW, whilst sympathetic to the need for a By-Pass and the predicament in which the Kildare County Council now find themselves, never the less cannot accept the EIS because its predictions about the impact on Pollardstown Fen, are in our view, unreliable.” The OPW Report Conclusions & Recommendations offers two alternative solutions: 1. Withdraw the EIS, rescope the groundwater, geotechnical and ecological investigations and carry out new, comprehensive environmental impact studies. These would take several years. 2 Retain the preferred route but change the design so that no significant groundwater de-watering is required. (2) Kildare Senior Planners report In the words of the Kildare Senior Planner: “The necessity to de-water part of the Curragh Aquifer as a result of making this cut could seriously effect Pollardstown Fen, an Area of National Amenity Importance and listed for protection in the County Development Plan. "Serious consideration should be given to the redesign option. If the redesign is not favored solely because of the fact that the motorway would be less in cut as it traverses the National Stud and the South of the town, then the balance as between this and the amenity of the Curragh (and the Fen) should be weighed. It this regard, it can be stated that the Curragh and the Fen (both of which are unique and can not be replicated) must be regarded as of much greater importance than the stud (which is man made, and could be relocated)." Conclusion An Taisce urges your Department to investigate this matter and assure that the protection offered sites under the Habitats Directive is given to Pollardstown Fen and that no community funding is used for this proposal unless the design of the motorway is changed or the full and comprehensive studies recommended by the Office or Public Works are completed. Yours, etc., Tony Lowes