This article is from page 15 of the 2009-07-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 15 JPG
CAOIMHIN Nolan, inspector with the EPA told the court that Chemi- floc’s licence specifies that the com- pany can emit treated waste gases to the atmosphere, in specified concen- trations and from a nominated stack.
After the company contacted the EPA to report the incident, Mr No- lan made a site visit and was told that the emission happened because the cooler which keeps the temperature down in water used to scrub gases had tripped out.
He told the court that having stud- ied a video clip and pictures taken of
the gas cloud, along with information about what process was going on at the plant at that time, he had con- cluded that the emission was one of Nitrogen Oxide.
“T studied the video in slow motion, frame by frame. It shows the plume (of gas) rising from ground level. This was an indication that smoke was being emitted from a source other than the stack,” he said.
The inspector said that the orange and red colour of the plume was typi- cal of that gas and he used the depth of the coloration to judge the concen- tration.
Under cross examination, Mr Nolan
agreed that the plume had dispersed without causing further incident. The court heard that the company had commissioned an independent report which estimated that the gas was present in a more dilute form than Mr Nolan had estimated.
The inspector agreed that the pros- ecution before the court referred to an alleged breach of the company’s licence with the EPA and not any breach of legislation.
He did not agree with counsel for the defence, who argued that there “can be no breach involved because no actual measurements (of the amount of gas emitted) were taken.”