14 August 2003: EXCLUSIVE! A major health hazard is threatening the health of residents of Lakelands estate as well as patients and staff of Naas General Hospital following a massive sewerage overspill in the vicinity yesterday evening.
Outraged residents of nearby Lakelands Estate are demanding an enquiry into what happened and say they will today contact the Environmental Protection Agency and the Health & Safety Authority for instructions and help with the problem.
Eye witnesses say the sludge gurgled up through a manhole in the grass across the road from the gates of Naas Hospital and was at least two feet high out on the Craddockstown Road. Toilet paper could be seen around the manhole depression INSIDE the gates of the hospital late last night.
One woman actually videoed the river of sewerage which made its way down the main access road into Lakelands and disappeared near the bridge at the top lake.
Lakelands residents Anne and Joe Gallagher who live across the road from the Hospital first noticed the sewerage spill at around 5pm yesterday.
“We saw the Council staff out with trucks and from a distance we presumed they were cleaning out the shores,” they said. “Then we could see it oozing up through the grass exactly across from the main gate of the hospital. It then went out on the road, at least 2 feet out, splattering up on to passing cars. The area was cordoned off at 9pm but not sufficiently so.”
They said ‘it was well into the gate of the hospital and the fire brigade had to pump it up’.
Residents have slammed the fact that only a tape cordon was placed around a small section of the grass last night. They claim the whole area should be cordoned off. No warning signs were in place last night to warn hospital staff who park in Lakelands estate from 8am. Many walk across the grass to the hospital and will carry infection into the hospital on their shoes.
A number of visitors to the hospital yesterday evening said they had to disinfect their shoes inside the building.
Michael Moriarty of Lakelands Residents Association said the word 'negligence’ comes to mind ‘big time’. He rounded on Naas Town Council for not having an adequate emergency plan in place to cope with such a dangerous situation and slammed their lack of communications with residents. “No engineers were down here. We need to be informed about what’s going on,” he said.
Residents also claimed to have informed the Mayor, Cllr Pat O’Reilly, who lives nearby, but said 'Charlie Byrne was the only councillor who came to meet us'.
Cllr Byrne (right) expressed his anger and dismay over the situation and offered his full support to the residents. He described the spill as ‘a major health hazard’ and said if it had been an oil spill, warning signs would already have been in place. He feared much of the sewerage had gone into the shores and could have reached the town’s main water supply. He pointed to toilet paper stuck in the slime at the manhole inside the hospital gates.
The stench still hung over the whole area late last night with sewerage still visibly seeping through a wide area of grass, and lying in pools on the road and footpath.
Locals said the town council workmen had done their best at the scene, but criticised the fact that they had not been given protective clothing to wear on the job and had had to go for disinfectant.
They say they have ‘a constitutional right to take a case against Naas Town Council over the contamination’ and are seeking to have the water supply examined ‘as a matter of urgency’.
They also fear young children and pets could walk on the contaminated areas, unaware of the danger.
Michael Moriarty said he had contacted the local Gardai at 10pm last night as bollards should be in place by 8am today, when hospital staff arrive. He was concerned that if sewerage was also coming from the hospital, ‘what infections are we bringing into our houses or are seeping into the lake across the road?’
He said Council workmen had in recent days been observed looking at the manhole on the grass at Lakelands which had caused the problem and were later seen working at the bridge at Lakelands. “The whole area should be cordoned off but we’re just left with a patch-up job,” he claimed.
The residents say they have suffered as a result of the construction work at the hospital for the last five years and ‘this is the final straw’.
“We’re not putting up with any more,” they warned last night.
