Mobuoy dump: Barrier to protect Derry's drinking water supply proposed

A view of the River Faughan. (file picture) LS46-115KM

Members of Derry & Strabane Council’s Environment and Regeneration Committee received a presentation from PCI Consulting on their proposed remediation works for the Mobuoy Landfill Site on the outskirts of Derry.

It had been estimated that more than one million tonnes of waste was left on the Mobuoy site beside part of the River Faughan, which supplies a significant proportion of the city’s drinking water.

Addressing the hybrid chamber, Daniel McAteer, Company Director at PCI Consulting said: “Senior government advisors have been saying it’s likely there could be water pollution for the next 40 or 50 years.”

He offered their solution which was a full remediation of the site, including the use of a protective barrier across the River Faughan.

“The first thing we wanted to do was to put a protective barrier across the River Faughan,” said Mr McAteer. “We then wanted to excavate and quantify and qualify the waste types, remove and dispose into a properly engineered landfill site and then the remediation of the site with long term aftercare and then pass the asset to some form of community trust or community interested partnership without the liability.”

As a Faughan DEA councillor, Alliance elected representative Rachael Ferguson agreed that remediation was something she would like to see done as soon as possible.

Sinn Féin councillor Christopher Jackson said: “We have all got the exact same goal here – to make the site safe and undo the untold environmental damage that’s been caused. “

People Before Profit councillor Maeve O’Neill emphasised the importance of learning lessons from Mobuoy.

“I think as well as remediating the site we need to learn lessons on how we deal with waste, that’s why the council has a zero waste circular economy strategy,” she commented.

“The Tetra Tech presentation on the Department’s website indicates that there is now almost 2 million tonnes of waste there.

“People Before Profit have been working alongside the activists calling for action on Mobuoy and remediation for Mobuoy for a number of years. We have a real commitment to ensure Mobuoy is safely remediated.”

Mr McAteer said: “Our position is very simple, whether there is 500,000 tonnes or 1 million tonnes, the first step that should be taken here was the protection of the river”.

He claimed they were denied “the opportunity to do that and there will be consequences from that and flowing from that”.

“We are trying to encourage investment from outside of this country and the fact that we can’t fix the biggest problem on our own doorstep for whatever reason to my mind sends out a very worrying message.”

Supportive of the protective barrier across the River Faughan, DUP Alderman Maurice Devenney asked for the cost of such an installation.

Mr McAteer said information about the levels of waste, the state of the waste, the locality of the waste was received recently.

“We have now instructed a team of consulting engineers to define the waste based on the information now provided. They are now feeding that to Keller who design the barrier and then we will have a firm price at that stage.”

UUP Alderman Derek Hussey said he would be concerned at the council “taking the leading role on this but we have the expertise within council to analyse all that would be forthcoming.”

Disagreeing, McAteer commented: “My frustrations are that I have seen up close how efficient this council has worked in other areas and I think it is a tragedy that they aren’t given more responsibility here.”

He continued: “Our position is clear, we can develop a proposal. Someone needs to take this by the scruff of the neck.”