As far as high-profile advocates go, a former James Bond is a dream for any campaign. So, in September 2022, when Navan-born Pierce Brosnan threw his support behind locals opposing Dawn Meats’ proposal for a pipeline to discharge hundreds of thousands of litres of treated wastewater from their Slane abattoir into the Boyne, you can imagine the executives at the Irish meat company throwing their hands up in exasperation.
They had every reason to worry. A few weeks ago, An Bord Pleanála refused the application. In an email sent last week to Save the Boyne campaigners, who came together in 2022 in response to the proposed pipeline, Brosnan expressed his gratitude for what he described as “mighty news”: “The heart again relaxes for the river Boyne and all who have given of their hard work and hearts to protect this most treasured waterway.”
Brosnan brought a bit of Hollywood glamour to an issue that, at its heart, is about an aspect of food production most of us prefer to overlook: the fate of abattoir effluent, including what’s euphemistically referred to as “wash-down from the production floor” - a term for the bodily fluids of dead animals, such as blood, which are an inevitable byproduct of the process.
The saga began in March 2021, when Dawn Meats secured approval from Meath County Council to expand its EPA-licensed beef abattoir operations at Beauparc, just a few kilometres southwest of Slane. The multimillion euro plan involved constructing a 7km pipeline from the facility to Dollardstown, where it would discharge 400,000 litres of treated abattoir wastewater into the Boyne - every day.
Dawn Meats is one of Ireland’s largest meat processors. The company, founded in 1979 by Waterford brothers Peter and John Queally along with Dan Browne, employs 2,500 people in Ireland and generates an annual turnover of more than €2.5 billion, exporting to 50 countries. In 2012 it signed a deal to supply 400 million burgers a year to McDonald’s. To buffer its exposure to Brexit and continue its expansion in the UK, in 2017 the company took over processing plants owned by Tyrone-based Dunbia, one of which was the Slane abattoir.
[ Bee hotels are a misplaced attempt to help natureOpens in new window ]
When animals are slaughtered in an abattoir, the facility is cleaned down in a process that mixes water with blood, fats, oils, proteins and other materials. This creates a high-strength nutrient wastewater mixture that poses environmental risks, so it must be treated before the wastewater is discharged, under licences, into local waterways.
Currently, effluent from the Slane plant is stored in lagoons before being transported by multiple trucks every day to a treatment plant in Drogheda. In its planning application, Dawn Meats proposed building a multimillion-euro plant at the Slane abattoir to treat the effluent on-site, before releasing the wastewater through a 7km pipe to private lands at Ardmulchan, where it would be discharged into the Boyne.
Dawn Meats argued that removing trucks from local roads would positively impact the area, and said that an environmental report it commissioned concluded that the wastewater would not negatively impact the river or surrounding habitats. Meath County Council agreed.
But a group of five locals were having none of it. Alarmed by the potential impacts, they came together as Save the Boyne, and their objections were joined by hundreds of others. These include submissions from angling and kayaking groups as well as Inland Fisheries Ireland. The Boyne is the source of drinking water for tens of thousands of homes in Meath and Louth, further raising awareness of the application.
In 2021 fisheries scientists raised concern that the river’s water temperature had risen beyond levels suitable for trout growth
Last month, in overturning the council’s approval, An Bord Pleanála cited “insufficient information’” demonstrating that the wastewater would not harm water quality in the Boyne, and said that “scientific doubt” remains regarding the potential impact of the treated effluent on the river.
In asking to use the Boyne as a place to dispose of its wastewater, Dawn Meats wasn’t doing anything unusual. Across Ireland, treated effluent is discharged into our rivers and streams under licence issued by county councils to hotels, golf clubs, national schools, colleges, pubs, airports, food processors, nursing homes, quarries, commercial laboratories, fuel companies and restaurants. It’s up to the councils to make sure this is done in a way that doesn’t cause pollution. For larger industries such as Dawn Meats, the Environmental Protection Agency is responsible.
[ Irish deer populations have become rampant, and the trees are paying a priceOpens in new window ]
But the cumulative pressures from agriculture, urbanisation and industry, coupled with a chronic lack of State investment in water infrastructure and enforcement, are proving too much for many of our waterways. In the Boyne catchment, just over half of the waterways are at risk of not meeting the minimum standards set by law. Heatwaves and low water levels during the summer exacerbate the problem, as illustrated by reports in summer 2018 of young people fishing dying salmon from the oxygen-deprived waters of the Boyne. In 2021 fisheries scientists raised concern that the river’s water temperature had risen beyond levels suitable for trout growth.
Locals were galvanised to take action. A few years ago, the Boyne Rivers Trust was formed; it has planted native trees along the riverbanks in the hope that their branches will provide essential shade for Atlantic salmon in the summer.
Fisheries expert Dr Ken Whelan says rivers can tolerate a certain amount of treated wastewater discharge, as natural systems have a natural capacity to process it. “It’s amazing what rivers can do, free of charge,” he says. However, he emphasises that there is a limit, and these thresholds will change as climate warming continues. “In the future, we have to model potential climate change impacts into our plans,” he says. In short, we need to look ahead.
What’s clear from this case is the interminable amount of time it is taking for authorities to process planning applications. Dawn Meats first applied in March 2021; it took Meath County Council a full year to reach a decision. In May 2022 an appeal was lodged with An Bord Pleanála, where the case lingered for three years before last month’s judgment. Along the way, hundreds of pages of ecological and planning reports were submitted, offering wildly differing conclusions about the impact of the treated wastewater on the river and its habitats. This highlights a dysfunctional, unnecessarily costly and slow system that benefits neither businesses nor local communities.
An Bord Pleanála’s refusal is undoubtedly a setback for Dawn Meats, which met its match in the Save the Boyne group with a little help from an ex-007. Meanwhile, the river Boyne continues to struggle with the demands put on it by human activity. It’s fourth on the EPA’s “most-at-risk” catchments, and only a mammoth effort will restore it.
