The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned that North Cork Co-Op is in danger of losing its licence to operate its creamery in Kanturk unless it resolves what it describes as "very serious matters" concerning its wastewater discharges into a local river.
It says there is a lack of management, control, and operational expertise related to its wastewater discharges.
North Cork Creameries which is located beside the River Allow, a tributary of the Blackwater River, was investigated by the EPA as part of an exhaustive search for the source of pollution that caused the Blackwater fish kill in early August.
Up to 32,000 salmon and trout and 10,000 other fish species died after an unknown environmental irritant entered the river.
The EPA has emphasised that it found no causal link between discharges by the creamery and the fish mortalities.
It does not believe North Cork Creameries was in any way responsible for the fish kill.
However, the final report of the Interagency Group that investigated the fish kill highlights that North Cork Creameries has a history of failure to consistently achieve compliance with its wastewater licence discharge conditions.
It says the plant in Kanturk was already the subject of significant environmental enforcement activity by the EPA prior to the fish kill.
This included prosecutions, convictions and fines in April this year. The EPA has continued to monitor the site closely since then.
It detected what it said were serious and entirely unacceptable pollution discharges from the creamery's wastewater treatment plant between June and August.
The report says these breaches of the Co-Op’s licence conditions arose primarily due a lack of organised management, or control, of wastewater treatment activities.
There was also a lack of appropriate expertise to resolve significant operational issues according to the report.
The EPA said the creamery failed to appropriately generate, manage, maintain, and use critical data sets to inform corrective actions, and has a disregard for licence requirements and licence limits.
The report says these issues have not yet been fully resolved and the EPA is rigorously pursuing enforcement as a matter of priority and urgency.
It warns that offences related to breaches of EPA licences may be prosecuted summarily by the EPA or on indictment by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The EPA is giving full consideration to all such enforcement options in respect of the non-compliances detected.
Today’s report says these pre-existing issues are very serious matters that need to be resolved to restore consistent compliance and for the North Cork Creameries to entertain the prospect of retaining its licence to operate into the future.
