Outrage at illegal dumping in woodland beauty spot
A local councillor has hit out at the culprits of large-scale illegal dumping at Doon in Roscahill, as Coillte and Galway County Council begin the process of removing over 100 tyres from land managed by the forestry authority.
Cllr Noel Thomas said the large quantity of waste tyres were dumped along a remote track leading to Doon East Wind Farm earlier this month, pointing out that it would be an expensive exercise for both the Council and Coillte to have the material safely disposed of.
“This is a particularly bad case – there are an awful lot of tyres up there, a lorry load I’d say.
“This happened a few weeks ago and it was reported to Coillte then but Coillte and Galway County Council have only agreed to remove them now,” said Cllr Thomas.
“That’s going to be costly – you’re talking something like €5 a tyre and there is anything up to a couple of hundred tyres up there,” he added.
The illegal dumping of tyres is a nationwide problem and Cllr Thomas said they were not about to let this area, on the road to one of the country’s largest on-shore windfarms, become another dumping ground.
“The ground up there is rough ground so it wasn’t a car that brought these in – it would have to have been a tractor or truck that brought the tyres up.
“This is the first time there has been any problem with major dumping up there. There have been minor dumping problems before, but nothing like this.
“We are looking at many different lines of enquiry and we’ll keep digging to see can we see somebody heading up that way on any CCTV cameras that are along the route; the Gardaí have been informed,” said Cllr Thomas.
Due to the seclusion of the area, and the fact that the pathway to where the tyres were dumped is gated, Cllr Thomas believes it must have been somebody who is familiar with the area who dumped the material.
“This is a mountain road so whoever it was, they knew where they were going.
“That gate is always locked and it would be very rare that it would be left open. Whoever this was must have been up there regularly enough to have seen their opportunity when the gate was open,” said Cllr Thomas.
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