Concerns local landfill site is contaminating drinking water
The concerns focus on the condition of two landfill cells at Ballaghveny
Concerns about potential impacts on water quality prompted Councillors in North Tipperary to demand the suspension of remedial works at the Ballaghveny landfill site near Nenagh.
At the June meeting of Tipperary County Council, elected members from the Nenagh District brought forward two notices requesting the local authority suspend further works on the engineered weather cap of two cells at the Ballaghveny Landfill facility “for a defined period, to commission an independent and comprehensive peer review of all remediation options and subject to EPA review.”
Capping of the historical landfill is currently underway, which aims to limit environmental exposure to the rubbish in the landfill, and to support the use of the land into the future.
In response to the motion, director of services for the environment Eamon Lonergan said that the project to cap the landfill is worth over €2-million, and the council would be in breach of their contract if they stalled the works.
A second motion requested groundwater and domestic well monitoring in the vicinity of the Ballaghveny landfill facility. Members of the Ballymackey Environmental Group attended the meeting as observers.
The concerns focus on the condition of two landfill cells at Ballaghveny, which were filled between 1985 and 1993 and if they are in direct contact with groundwater, allowing rain water to pass through deposited waste and leach into water courses.
The local environmental group has raised concerns that this process may be mobilising contaminants from historic waste, including substances such as benzene, perchloroethylene, chloride and ammonia, with the potential for these to migrate beyond the site boundary into surrounding groundwater and nearby watercourses.
A recent incident report on the EPA website, dated May 1 2026, reported that “groundwater sampling found that twelve locations, three of which are influenced by the bog, exceeded trigger levels for one or more parameters”.
Director of Services Eamon Lonergan cautioned against any suspension of works and said the remediation programme is already underway under a signed contract and funded through a €2.2-million allocation from the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, and that any delay could jeopardise that funding.
Mr Lonergan said that the EPA have been taking samples from the site for years, adding that "a lot of money and time" has already been spent on ensuring all work was carried out to best environmental standards and practices.
“There is a real significant risk of impacts if we were to do that, a suspension would effectively be a suspension of works and it would result in a number of things.
“We have a contractor on the site, he’s been there since last year, the works are almost finished. He’s doing works that have been approved under our license that are engineering cap works. These are very costly works, it’s over €2.2million worth of engineering works,” Mr Lonergan explained.
“If we paused wor, we would enter into a contractual dispute, exposing the council. These works are funded 100pc from the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment. We can’t expose the taxpayer to that level of debt,” he added.
The council also has a legal requirement and obligation to carry out these works, the meeting was told, with the council also potentially being taken to court by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) if the works are not done.
The council also said that a comprehensive monitoring programme is already in place, including both groundwater and well monitoring, in accordance with the EPA Industrial Emissions Licence.
“Tipperary County Council continues to carry out annual biological monitoring of the Ollatrim River. Results to date indicate no evidence of any impact from the landfill on the water quality of either the Ollatrim River or on Ballaghveny Stream.”
However, the council concluded that: “in the interest of further demonstrating health and environmental compliance, Tipperary County Council is willing to formally engage with the EPA, who are independent of local authorities, to determine their opinion and recommended approach to independent sampling and testing of private wells.”