Lake spared as bogslide grinds to a halt
Friday September 26 2008
A BOGSLIDE which threatened one of the country's premier fishing lakes appeared to have come to a halt yesterday.
For the third consecutive night, geotechnical experts and wind farm and forestry staff remained at the scene of a potential environmental disaster.
The site is at the village of Drumkeerin on the Leitrim, Roscommon border, and last night officials were monitoring the situation.
The slide began on Tuesday afternoon during the construction of a road to the Garvagh Glebe North wind farm, a joint project between Coillte and Hibernian Wind Power, a subsidiary of the ESB.
The 20-metre wide, four-metre high mound of peat moved down the mountain, crossed a road and entered a small river which flows into Lough Allen.
By Wednesday night, the peatslide had reached the third of three dams and a further two dams were constructed down river as a precautionary measure.
Yesterday, markers were put at points of weakness along the route and a filtering system was put in place to extract as much peat as possible from the moving mass.
Staff with the Shannon Regional Fisheries Board removed 1,200 live juvenile fish from the Abhann Ghearr river and as of yesterday there were no reported fish kills at the site.
Continuing to move fish yesterday, fisheries inspector Matt Nolan said he was hopeful the worst was over.
"We are continuing to move out fish ahead of it but we would be hoping that the main bulk of it will continue to be contained," he said.
A spokesperson for the ESB confirmed that the slide appeared to have come to a halt.
"Teams of people are monitoring the situation on an hourly basis, but as of 10pm last night there has been no movement. It is stable," she said.
- Anita Guidera
