Ring Road ‘would be pollution threat to Rusheen Bay’

From this week’s Galway City Tribune – Surface discharge from the new ring road in Cappagh would flow into the Barna Stream and into Rusheen Bay, a local resident has claimed.

The claim was made at the An Bord Pleanála oral hearing this week by Cappagh resident Kevin Gill, who argued that the planned drainage for the Cappagh valley is to allow run-off from the road to enter the local water course and to use existing sewers

“Any polluting surface discharge, such as heavy metal and hydro carbons, or surface water impacts during construction, can flow freely into Barna Stream, which flows through Barna Woods, home to a rare natural beech wood and out into Rusheen Bay both part of the Galway Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC).

“This discharge would be further exacerbated due to the lack of action on a local flooding issue on the Cappagh Road where after heavy rain a stream runs down our road directly where the proposed bypass junction is located,” he told the eighth day of the An Bord Pleanála hearing.

The Council responded to these claims by stating that “the source and location of this recurring local flooding is outside of the proposed works area and the proposed development boundary area”.

“The proposed road development, including its proposed drainage treatment, will not impact upon the existing flooding at this location nor will it alter the source of the flooding.”

Mr Gill asked how the engineers could have missed the fact there were no sewers in the area.

“What other parts of the plan don’t exist? How can we trust their planned construction, which destroys part of the eastern tributary of the stream, to stop the pollutant risks in an area subject to varying seasonal stream flow, when they can’t even survey the area sufficiently?

“Barna Stream’s source is in the Moycullen Bog Complex and directly links this to the Galway Bay Complex. One weekend of rain, when works are not taking place and a previously unmapped stream outside of the proposed works area, could wash pollution directly into multiple SACs, killing off the Salmon and Sea Trout spawning beds.”

Mr Gill said the road project would be at odds with the National Planning Framework (NPF), which states that the ‘liveability’ quality or of life of urban places was a priority.

“Considering the residents of Cappagh will experience a complete reversal from a safe, quiet, dark, unpolluted environment that provides plentiful foraging for animals, birds and people, to a permanently bright, polluted location, suffering from habitat fragmentation, with increased chance of serious health issues, where it is less safe due to busy road crossings and higher traffic levels, and suffers the severance of a forageable public access bóithrín that is older than any of us here – how does that scenario fit in with the NPF?” he asked.
This is a preview only. To read the rest of this article and extensive coverage of each day of the oral hearing this week, see the Galway City Tribune. Buy a digital edition of this week’s paper here.