Donegal County Council investigating ‘shocking but not surprising’ bog slippage on wind farm site
Stephen McDermott | The Journal | www.thejournal.ie
Stephen McDermott | The Journal | www.thejournal.ie
Donegal County Council has launched an investigation into a bog slippage at the site of a wind farm near Ballybofey last week.
The slippage occurred at the site of the Meenbog Wind Farm last week and has been described by a local TD as “shocking but not surprising”.
Staff attended the site on Friday and over the weekend, and a spokeswoman for the local authority said the investigation will focus on mitigating the impact of the incident, determining its cause and preventing further pollution.
Thomas Pringle has said he will raise the issue in the Dáil this week, after a video of the incident showing a row of standing trees slipping downstream was posted to social media.
The Donegal TD said the issue has been seen a number of times across the country and claimed that independent environmental assessments could be undertaken as part of the planning process to prevent similar slippages in future.
“If you want to develop a wind farm, you [could] pay €100,000 to the council and the council actually carries out an independent assessment of it,” he told Highland Radio this morning.
“And if that independent assessment recommends that controls be put in place, that would be included in the planning permission.
“That would go very quickly, I think, in sorting all these problems out.”
Highland Radio also warned that there are serious concerns for the future of the salmon and trout fishery in the Derg River system in Tyrone as a result of the slippage.
However, the station added that no threat has been identified to water supplies on either side of the border.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2020/11/16/donegal-county-council-investigating-shocking-but-not-surprising-bog-slippage-on-wind-farm-site/