THE Minister for the Environment, Mr Howl in, will face a tough task getting over £20 million in EU funding for the Mutton Island sewage treatment plant in Galway Bay, because of the European Commission's strong objections to the scheme.
Before his announcement last week that the controversial project would proceed, Mr Howlin's Department had received a letter from the Commission - which has been seen by The Irish Times - indicating clearly it would not finance it.
The Minister has since replied, defending the scheme and objecting to the Commission's "insensitive" interventions "which cannot be justified". Accordingly, he has insisted on maintaining Ireland's application for 85 per cent EU funding for the project.
The Commission's letter said there was "an alternative to the Mutton Island site which is financially, technically and environmentally feasible".
This was a reference to the much canvassed option of locating the sewage treatment plant at Lough Atalia, east of Galway city centre, which the Commission favoured because it would cost no more than the Mutton Island project and would have less of an impact on the environment.
Following "careful consideration", Ms Monika Wulf Mathies, the Regional Policy Commissioner, was now "inclined to the view, on the basis of the information supplied to date, that the Commission should not assist the construction of a waste water treatment plant on Mutton Island."
The letter - from Mr J.F. Verstiynge, head of the regional policy directorate - also referred to discrepancies between the views expressed by the National
Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) in 1992 and a more recent submission from the Office of Public Works apparently giving Mutton Island its blessing.
Three years ago, according to Mr Verstiynge, the NPWS observed that Galway Corporation's environmental impact statement had "failed to address the possible implications of the loss of Mutton Island as an undisturbed high tide roosting site" for several important species of waders.
However, in view of the OPW's change of mind, the letter said it was "not unreasonable for the Commission to seek confirmation that the NPWS is satisfied on the basis of sufficient ornithological information that development at Mutton Island with not cause the deterioration of inner Galway Bay".
The Commission also wanted assurances that the sewage plant "will not cause significant disturbance to wild bird species, that it will not adversely affect the integrity of the SPA (Special Protection Area) and that there are no proposals for further development, such as a marina, in the area of Mutton Island".
The letter said: "The Commission sees no reason to depart from the proposition that adverse development within an SPA should only be allowed when there is no alternative solution."
A claim by the Irish authorities that the Lough Atalia site would be "so environmentally unsafe that it must be ruled out in favour of Mutton Island appears to us to be unproven". And, the letter goes on, if this is true, it would raise serious questions about the design of a large number of treatment plants in Ireland".
Noting that Lough Atalia would require an outfall of 880 metres, the letter said this would be "far from unusual in Ireland".
It cited examples, including a very much shorter outfall in Tralee, Co Kerry, which would discharge into only a foot of water at low tide close to a nature reserve.
Tralee was relying on ultra violet disinfection to ensure adequate treatment. "Accordingly, we cannot understand why UV treatment is acceptable to the Department of the Environment in this location when (it) seems to dismiss it as an unproven and unreliable process in Galway only 70 miles away.
"There cannot be one set of criteria by which to judge the environmental risks associated with a treatment plant in Galway and an entirely different set for all other locations," the Commission said, adding that Mutton Island was the only one of 80 Irish Cohesion Fund projects it had queried.
