AUGHINISH Alumina extracts alumina from bauxite, a red earth ore found mainly in the tropics. The raw product is shipped from Africa and processed at the plant which produces about 1.3 million tonnes of alumina a year. Some 40 million tonnes are produced globally for incorporation into aluminium and cement - mostly in plants with a cost advantage over the Irish operation.
The process involves generation of sulphur dioxide gas in large boilers and calciners where the ore is converted into an oxide by heating in air. The EPA wants gas emissions from these sources to be reduced by twothirds.
This follows Ireland's embracing of the concept of sustainable development. Industry is being made increasingly subject to integrated pollution control licensing which the EPA is implementing. It was introduced as a method of effective environmental control and management, and first applied to the pharmaceutical industry.
It is being extended to most industries required to register with the EPA in a process due to be completed by 1998. With increasing environmental demands and more sensitive evaluation of pollutants - whether in waste, water or the air - licence terms are often stricter than previous controls.
Aughinish Alumina, which was subject to environmental controls under planning permission granted by Limerick County Council, insists it has fulfilled its obligations and deployed internationally regarded environmental management systems.
Independent studies into the death of more than 170 cattle in the Askeaton area have found nothing to contradict this.
The company's objections to the licence are unequivocal. It represents the incurring of extra costs by having to use 1 per cent sulphur fuel oil - $6.3 million a year which "would almost certainly spell closure" - but Cork Environmental Alliance said the company "appears to be threatening the EPA that if it does not water down its conditions then, the company will close its doors".
CEA, the IFA and Askeaton Ballysteen Animal Health Committee have objected to the licence terms.
CEA spokesman, Mr Derry Chambers, said the company objections "raise fundamental questions on the whole pollution control system and seriously challenge the EPA's statutory right to impose pollution limiting conditions on industry".
A company spokesman stressed, however, that Aughinish Alumina was "not rejecting spending money because it cannot afford to protect the environment".
The restrictions were considerably in excess of normal standards, he said, were not environmentally justified and would put an inordinate burden on the plant.
In a response to the latest EPA study on the farm deaths, Aughinish Alumina said it was "extremely encouraged" by more detailed EPA measurements confirming that sulphur dioxide levels were well within limits needed to protect human health.
