Despite apparent local apathy, planning experts describe it as the most outrageous planning decision being taken in the country at the moment.
Galway Corporation is trying to get planning permission to extend its dump at Carrowbrown, Lough Corrib. The dump started in 1970s, and in 1984 the corporation got permission to extend the dump. In 1995 locals got a High Court order to enforce planning regulations which were being regularly breached - the dump exceeded its permitted height and the Corporation was not covering the land properly.
Unlike many planning controversies, there seems to be no corruption involved:"It's plain old fashioned incompetence on the part of the Corporation," say environmental experts.
Basic rules of dump siting include: Not siting a dump where there is a flood more than once every fifty years. This site flooded in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1995. The Corporation in its evidence basically said "well, it didn't flood in 1994."
The second rule is that the Geological Survey of Ireland rates sites from R1 - where there is suitable protection of ground water supplies (and so it's OK to dump) to R4, a regionally important aquifier , where it is not OK to dump. The Carrowbrown site is an R4 site.
The hyrdogeologist on the case agrees that the site is "not ideal." Asked to think of a worse site he said: "In a gravel sandpit, on an acquifier, next to a river supplying drinking water." Ironically, this is an exact description of Kill - the Co Kildare village selected to be the site for the new Dublin dump.
The baseline used to measure pollution was itself taken from downstreamof where the first pollution from the dump leaches into the lake. This makes a mockery of the survey.
One engineer who has examined the site says that the way to deal with it is to dig the whole thing up and move it.
The decision of An Bord Plannala is due in a few weeks.
As a protestor told the tribunal: "I fully expect the technical report and the inspector to reccommend refusal, but due to the total mismangement of waste by the Corporation, the Board will grant the application as the alternative is to leave it on the streets of Galway."
One engineer suggested that they monitor the new dump conditions for pollution: But as the protestors say: "Why? We already know there is leachate - even without the extension."