Dairygold’s €60m planned expansion of its Mogeely plant has drawn more than 100 submissions from members of the public concerned about the discharge of waste water into Cork harbour.

Some 114 observations, 110 of them valid, were submitted to Cork County Council’s planning service about the co-op’s plans to expand and build a new cheese production facility at Mogeely.

The co-op is bracing itself for a possible objection and referral to An Bord Pleanála.

Most of the observations submitted to the council centred on concerns about waste water from the cheese-making process being discharged into the sea at Rathcoursey, Cork Harbour.

Waste water

Waste water from the co-op’s existing cheese production plant gets discharged to the nearby River Kiltha at a rate of 700 cubic metres per day.

However, the proposed expansion would result in some 2,700 cubic metres more waste water being produced per day.

The Kiltha cannot handle the increased water and so Dairygold has proposed transporting it via a 13.6km pipeline from Mogeely to the existing Midleton main drainage outfall at Rathcoursey.

The co-op is expanding the Mogeely plant in partnership with Norwegian co-op TINE to produce Jarlsberg cheese but faces objections from local residents groups, the Saleens and District Residents Association and Protect East Ferry Waters.

Cork County Council has requested that Dairygold supply further information on its plans. This will include an impact assessment on the discharge and a report on why it decided on Rathcoursey.

Deadline

Dairygold has up to six months to submit the requested information to the council.

A spokesman for the co-op told the Irish Farmers Journal that the 114 observations could signal a likely objection and referral to An Bord Pleanála for the ultimate planning decision.

However the anticipated delay should still see additional cheese production in operation at Mogeely by late summer 2019, as originally planned.

“Dairygold is confident that the planned discharge of treated waste water to sea through the Rathcoursey outfall will be fully compliant with all regulation and licence limits posing no environmental risks whatsoever to human, animal, plant or marine life,” said the spokesman.

“The discharge will operate fully within existing EPA and Irish Water licence limits and will have a negligible and imperceptible impact on water quality at Rathcoursey.”