DoI wants hazardous waste at Rockmount to stay buried

Planning bid comes despite promises it would be temporary

The Department of Infrastructure wants the contaminated silt at Rockmount near the Poortown Road quarry to stay buried.

The hazardous waste was dredged and taken from Peel Harbour in 2015, then stored at the dumping site as a ‘temporary solution’.

Planning consent to keep the silt there expires this month, but the department wants to leave it at Rockmount permanently.

It’s submitted a planning application for approval to keep the material underground, claiming it would cost too much to move and to avoid the ‘heavy traffic’ caused by transporting it elsewhere.

The DoI also suggests the field has become ‘a stable habitat, and an established meadow’, with contaminated silt which may now be left ‘undisturbed’.

When the material was dredged from the harbor in 2015, disposal at the Rockmount site was chosen over dumping at sea, which experts advised could damage the marine environment and risk public health.

The government of the time was criticised for its handling of the issue, over reported spillages from the trucks transporting the waste and over a lack of consultation on the temporary solution.

As a result of historic mining activity in the area, the silt contains traces of heavy metals including cadmium, lead and zinc.

The disposal at Rockmount was lined with a membrane to stop the waste leaching, in what was described as an ‘engineered solution’.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Baker MHK says leaving the silt there is the ‘most appropriate long-term solution’, and stresses a monitoring regime will make sure it has no effect on the surrounding environment.

German Commissioners is understood to be in talks with the department about the proposal, and is expected to discuss it in more detail on the local authority’s next meeting on 2 September.