Irish Examiner - 05/08/05
EPA lacks the expertise to enforce environmental regulations, expert claims
By Dan Buckley

ONE of Ireland’s foremost experts on the chemical industry believes the Environmental Protection Agency has neither the expertise nor the resources to fully monitor and enforce environmental regulations within the industry.

Peter North, a consulting chemical process engineer with 35 years' experience, said yesterday that both the attitude and the structures of the EPA must change to ensure a better service.

“How can a nine to five operation be of any use? It is after five that things happen,” he said.

Mr North, who has carried out design work on most of the pharmaceutical plants in this country, added that though the Oireachtas had given the agency “monumental powers” it had failed to set it up properly.

He said if he was an EPA inspector he would have found that a quarter of the chemical plants in the country could merit “some extreme action up to closure”.

However, he also defended the industry and attacked the amount of Government regulations governing it.

“There are so many rules and no one understands them all. Many of them are far too restrictive and to run a plant within all the licence conditions all the time would be absolutely impossible.”

Mr North also criticised the EPA inspector’s report into the recent spillage at the ADM plant in Ringaskiddy, saying that it failed to state that the substance was 50% caustic soda.

“The 50% caustic that was spilled is essentially the same as your sink un-pluggers. Strong caustic like that is very reactive. It burns and would probably have caused the water to boil; then it would have sunk straight to the bottom and spread across the sea bed. It may not be as toxic as other substances but if you drank 50% caustic it would tear your insides apart.

“The EPA report did not state that it was 50% caustic which it should have done. They also failed to say where it came from, which they should also have done.”

Mary Kelly, director general of the EPA, said in her annual report that the establishment of the Office of Environmental Enforcement would allow the agency to escalate enforcement this year and that this would result in more prosecutions.