Dublin City Council has admitted that a new €300 million sewerage plant in Ringsend is the source of a major odour problem in parts of the city.
Mr Michael Phillips, a city engineer with Dublin City Council, yesterday apologised for the sewage smell and said it could take until late September to rectify.
Residents in the Ringsend and Sandymount areas of the city have been complaining about the smell in recent weeks and say they have been forced to keep their windows and doors closed despite the spell of good weather. It has also been detected as far inland as the city centre.
Green Party TD Mr John Gormley said his party was in favour of the construction of the sewage plant but complained that the smell was "intolerable" and was affecting the quality of life of local residents.
Mr Phillips said the problem had been made more acute due to the fine-tuning of the treatment plant, as well as good weather and easterly winds.
"During the commissioning of any treatment works you will get problems. It's not like opening a new road or a bridge. But we hadn't expected it to be so strong or to last as long as it has."
He said the problem centred on the treatment of solid waste, while no problems had arisen with the treatment of sewage effluent.
The Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Works, described at its launch on June 30th this year as "one of the most advanced wastewater treatment plants in the world", also treats waste from the north of the city via a 10.5km pipeline under Dublin Bay.
A consortium of Ascon, Black & Veatch and Anglian Water, ABA, designed and built the plant as a public-private partnership with Dublin City Council. The firm will operate the plant for the next 20 years on behalf of the local authority. Mr Gormley said it was up to ABA and Dublin City Council to ensure the problems were corrected as soon as possible. "The residents of Ringsend and Sandymount did not object to taking all of Dublin's sewage but they certainly object to the smell. Unfortunately, if the problem is not sorted out to the satisfaction of the local residents by September, the Green Party will have no other option but to organise a protest on the issue."
Mr Phillips said the council had been meeting regularly with residents and that attempts to correct the problems this week had already resulted in a noticeable improvement.
The treatment process is natural and removes over 95 per cent of polluting matter from household and commercial waste before it is discharged into Dublin Bay. It is hoped that better water quality will result in Dollymount, Sandymount and Merrion strands' meeting national and EU water standards for safe beaches.
