Environmental Enforcement: Poolbeg & Covanta

Ann Butler
"Independent Consultant"

10-Year-Director EPA-Ireland.
Covanta-Poolbeg-Dublin-Waste-to-Energy Contractor
Covanta-Energy-Answers-Rathcoole Contractor.

Dublin WTE Public Information Session:

Question (Member of Public to Dublin WTE at a public 'information' session):

Who staffs the office of Environmental Enforcement?
Who will conduct the monitoring of the [incinerator] plant and at what frequency?

Answer (Ann Butler, 'Environmental Consultant', Representing Dublin WTE):

The licence which the EPA issues will set out what monitoring and reporting must be carried out, for example, real time monitoring, intermittent monitoring of other emissions and the requirements to submit information on a regular basis. The EPA will also undertake checks and independent monitoring, as is required in legislation.

Source: "Statutory Process - Session 1.doc", Statutory Processes, 25 September 2004, Dublin Waste to Energy - Information Day 5.

Information & Misinformation

Was the question answered in a meaningful way?

The Dublin Waste to Energy Project website omits any mention of the revolving door relationships between EPA and the Incineration Industry, however innocent or professional they may be. This statutory process document does not highlight the consultant's Ten Year Directorship at EPA-Ireland and the potential conflicts of interest where the gamekeeper could turn poacher. Is thisThe Big Lie in Practice? Is it an ethical use of taxpayer money?


Footnotes:

The project title "Dublin Waste to Energy" is cynical spin for the more accurate "Dublin Waste to Toxins".

The Dublin Waste to Energy Project website prominently features a cynically misleading image of the proposed waste to toxins incinerator.

Dublin City Council has generated this alleged misinformation using €19,000,000 of taxpayer money. Dublin City Council has spent in excess of €19 million to promote the business goals of Dublin Waste to Energy Ltd, apparently. That's equivalent to tapping each person in the surrounding area for €2,000 each.

Dublin City Council has financially stressed or penalised Dublin citizens looking for information. At Bord Pleanala and at EPA public hearings Dublin City Council has used lawyers to interrupt and apparently harass(a) honest Dublin citizens.

Chinese Walls: Dublin Waste to Energy is essentially Covanta, a Luxembourg incorporated offshore entity billed as "Covanta USA". Tobacco companies have been fined billions of dollars within the USA, but not inside the Luxembourg legal firewall. Cigarettes deliver toxic particles in to lungs, perhaps not unlike incinerators. Dublin Waste to Energy Ltd is billed as a joint venture between "Covanta Energy, USA" and DONG Energy Generation, Denmark. Covanta also owns Energy Answers. Energy Answers International is apparently a legally independent or firewalled corporation based, for whatever reason, in the Virgin Islands and in Dublin. Energy Answers hired the former EPA-Ireland Director in July 2007.

_____________________
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/green-leader-in-secret-meetings-over-second-incinerator-for-city-1426003.html.

http://www.dublinwastetoenergy.ie/html/dublin-waste-to-energy.html

Culture of complicity and complacency
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,446889,00.html

(a) as some honest people and not necessarily The Galway Tent would conclude.