Advisors single out route for Eirgrid pylons

 

Power company EirGrid is insisting that reports published by it this week indicating an emerging preferred route for its 400kV power line across the county is simply a recommendation from consultants and is not an announcement of the chosen route.

On Monday, the company published a number of reports assessing the Meath-Cavan routes, the Cavan-Tyrone routes, and an assessment of overground versus underground options, as well as the planning context and a report on the public consultation process to date.

According toww the consultants, option 3 is the emerging preferred route, which traverses a number of parishes through central Meath.

The campaign group against the pylons, NEPP, says that the publication of these reports during High Court proceedings relating to the routes and the selection reports was entirely improper and it would be bringing the publication of the reports to the attention of the High Court at the next hearing of the case on 21st May.

Kilmessan man Tom Madden has brought a case to the court seeking the reports on the original route selections, which had been adjourned a number of times as EirGrid claimed it needed more time to prepare the documentation.

Soluziona and Tobin Consulting Engineers were commissioned by EirGrid to prepare a 'Constraints Report' for the construction of the line connecting the existing Woodland sub-station near Batterstown to the site identified for a new sub-station near Kingscourt.

This report details the options considered for the overhead lines between the two points. The methodology employed for the identification of the three routes was a combination of desktop studies, consultation with interested parties, and site visits to verify road and river crossings and areas of potential conflict. Each route was considered under the headings of landscape, ecology, water, geology, cultural heritage and dwellings and settlement.

When all the data was produced and anaylsed, options 3A and 3B began to appear as emerging route options, as they have the least amount of 'very high sensitivity' classifications. Option 3 traverses Drumree, Kiltale, Kilmessan, Bective, Robinstown, Dunderry, Irishtown, Bohermeen, crossing the N3 near Finnegan's Crossroads and splitting into two options 3A and 3B in the townlands of Red Island and Clongill.

Option 3A runs past Carlanstown and Togherstown, and 3B close to Nobber. The two line options join together in the townland of Altmush and run past Kilmainhamwood towards the proposed sub-station study area.

EirGrid said that it was always its intention to publish these reports as part of the public consultation process, but to do so during the initial process would have been detrimental to it, as it may have led to an uneven level of submissions from the relevant routes.

The reports are now being released as part of an ongoing consultation, on which there is no deadline, the company added, as it awaits the outcome of Communications Minister Eamonn Ryan's independent report into undergrounding versus overgrounding of lines.

NEPP is also drawing remarks made on the radio on Monday by EirGrid project manager, Aidan Corcoran, to the attention of the chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, which is due to discuss the impending report. NEPP believes that Mr Corcoran wouldn't commit to taking on board the recommendations of the report. NEPP believes that EirGrid is determined to apply to An Bord Pleanala for an overground project, despite the independent report.

Yesterday (Tuesday) EirGrid said it could not comment on the High Court case as it was still going through the courts and that it awaited Minister Ryan's report on overgrounding/undergrounding before any decision would be made.

Reacting to the publication of the report, Meath East TD Thomas Byrne said one had to wonder what EirGrid's public consultation was all about. “It was rumoured very early on that Route 3B was the preferred route and now we see confirmation of this,” Deputy Byrne said.

“The resolve of the communities of Castletown, Gibbstown, Kilberry, Nobber, Kilmainhamwood and Meath Hill will only be stronger in opposition to the overgrounding of these lines. This battle is far from over; in fact it is at a very early stage,” he added.

In a statement issued yesterday (Tuesday), IFA president Padraig Walshe said: “The association supports farm families in the north-east in their insistence that the proposed 400kV power line is put underground. This position has being conveyed to both EirGrid and the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.”

Speaking after a specially convened meeting of elected officers from Cavan, Meath and Monaghan in Kells last night, the IFA North Leinster vice-president Joe Brady said the meeting was unanimous in its call for the power line to be placed underground and this demand simply cannot be ignored.

“During the meeting, farmers expressed concerns regarding health, intrusion on property and the negative visual impact and consequential damage which the pylons associated with this project may have. Each of the issues raised are genuine and are highlighted out of concern for local farm families and the wider community,” he said.

Mr Brady expressed concern at the publication of reports by EirGrid, which outline the advantages of overhead lines, in what he claimed was an attempt to pre-empt the independent report due from Government, and without any reference to the advantages of carrying the cable out of sight underground similar to the Bord Gais pipeline.