Council moves to force Dublin Airport operator to hand over more data on “forever chemicals”

Fingal County Council has issued a formal notice to Dublin Airport’s operator telling it to hand over data showing levels of “forever chemicals” in wells close to the airport campus, a councillor has learnt.

Council officials had already asked DAA for any testing of nearby wells, said a response issued to Green Party Councillor Ian Carey on 13 February.

“They had done testing but didn’t give us the results but did state that they were under the limits,” said the response. “We intend to use our statutory powers to request the submission of this information.”

On 26 February, it issued that notice under the Local Government (Water Pollution) Act, said Carey last week. Fingal County Council hasn’t responded to a media query asking to see the notice.

A DAA spokesperson said that DAA “will respond to Fingal County Council on this ahead of their deadline”.

So far, there has been only a drip of data indicating levels of contamination from poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) at or around the airport.

DAA’s CEO, Kenny Jacobs, had told an Oireachtas committee last November that there weren’t any PFAS in waters at Dublin Airport. But that wasn’t true.

PFAS and PFOS  – toxic chemicals, some of which have been linked to greater risk of cancers, and hormonal disruption – had been found in surface and groundwaters at Dublin Airport, said a report that had already been filed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the European Chemicals Agency.

There are signs it may have leached into rivers outside of the airport grounds too.

The EPA has also been monitoring the Sluice River north of the airport since last year, “based on the risk of PFOS and PFOA contamination at Dublin Airport”, said an EPA spokesperson, with data showing “relatively elevated results”.

But whether PFAS has reached any wells in the area – and if so, which and at what levels – is unanswered.

A Geological Survey Ireland map shows 10 boreholes and springs within 1.5km of the airport campus – some marked industrial use, a couple domestic or agricultural, and some not labelled. But that data may not be accurate.

Carey, the Green Party councillor, said that “The airport need to come clean and make public all the information they have about the extent of the contamination.”

DAA needs to do that immediately, said Carey. “Why are they not being open with the public? Why are they fighting the release of basic information? This could be impacting people’s health.”

The DAA spokesperson didn’t address queries about concerns  that this could be impacting people’s health.

They also didn’t answer queries as to whether it had previously refused to hand over data that the council had asked for, whether PFAS has been found in wells and if so which ones, and at what levels.

In January, a DAA spokesperson said that PFAS as an issue is much bigger than just airports and present in almost every landscape in the world. The extent of the PFAS pollution globally is only just becoming clear, they said.

Also, DAA are early movers in dealing with legacy issues of PFAS, said the spokesperson. “And are happy to work with the relevant authorities to understand the risks and what steps we can take to help play our part.”

Where are the “forever chemicals”?

PFAS are a big family of substances, dubbed “forever chemicals” because they hang around for so long, building up in concentration.

Studies have linked some PFAS substances to greater risk of cancers, reproductive disorders, hormonal disruption and weakened immune systems.

Because they can repel water and oil, they’ve been used in all kinds of industrial and consumer products since the 1950s – outdoor clothing, paints, non-stick pans.

One major source has been firefighting foams. While the airport no longer uses foams with PFAS at the airport, there is legacy contamination in the ground, DAA has said.

But the extent of contamination of the soil, and where exactly it is, isn’t public.

Kenny spoke in November about an area on the south side of the airport.  But the council official, responding to Carey, noted that some PFAS contaminated soil had been excavated for the North Runway and reburied on site.

In addition to that soil from the North Runway, contaminated soil excavated from Apron 5 was exported for disposal, the response said. Planning records suggest that Apron 5 is towards the north-east of the airport campus.

Also, said the email to Carey, “Some PFAS compounds are very mobile in soil and PFAS compounds have been detected throughout the airport but at varying concentrations.”

“It is possible that there are other sources of PFAS contamination other than fire foams as PFAS substances are used in many applications,” it said.

The exact location of the soil contamination is included in reports shared by the EPA with Fingal County Council, said the council official’s response to Carey last month.

But those haven’t been published, and a request by Santry resident Paddy Fagan for them under the Freedom of Information Act is pending. The council said it would release the records on grounds of public interest, but DAA appealed that.

Cleaned up

At the Oireachtas committee meeting last November, Jacobs said the airport authorities were being “very cautious and diligent” in dealing with soil contaminated with PFAS.

“Again, these are very low levels but if PFAS are found at any level, the soil must be removed and that is what we are doing,” he said.

But the response issued by Fingal County Council to Carey said that: “There is no plan how to deal with the remaining contamination at the moment and no clear identification of possible remediation measures.”

What obligation there is on DAA to clean up PFAS on its campus depends on a few factors: whether it is just in soil, and if it is in soil whether that soil has been moved, and whether it has leached into water.

A spokesperson for Fingal County Council said that there is no specific legislation dealing with contaminated land.

That is an issue, says Owen McIntyre, a law professor at University College Cork. “We have a real gap in our law in relation to historic land contamination.”

That’s because of the prohibition, in the constitution, on the retroactive application of law, he said.

But that doesn’t mean no law applies, he says. If the pollutant is contaminating waters, then that could be an offence – and the court can make an order for its clean-up, he said.

“It has to be to a certain level of seriousness,” he said. “With PFAS that’s probably not that hard to do.”

Likewise, the Fingal County Council spokesperson pointed to local authority powers to deal with contaminated land which causes water pollution under the Local Government Water Pollution acts (1997–2007).

Under Section 12 of that act, a council can serve a notice on a person or entity having custody or control of a “polluting matter”.

By law, the council can lay out in that notice what has to be done to stop the matter getting into water, direct the person to do it, and dictate a timeframe.

And, the Waste Management Act may kick in sometimes, but it doesn’t apply to “unexcavated contaminated soil and buildings permanently connected with land”, said the council spokesperson.

DAA hasn’t responded to a query about what happened to the contaminated soil that it excavated for the North Runway and reburied on site.

At a June 2017 meeting with DAA officials, a Swords Tidy Towns member asked where the soil from the North Runway was disposed of. A DAA official said that, “a huge amount of the waste is being recycled for other uses including habitat recreation”.

McIntyre, the law professor, said that another move councils can make is setting conditions for clean-ups in planning permissions. “That’s what Irish local authorities have tended to do.”

A council could set a condition that the landowner has to test the soil for contaminants and tell it what it has found, he said, and then the council can prescribe what clean-up is required.

DAA currently has a planning application in to Fingal County Council to expand the airport.

Carey, the Green Party councillor, said it just isn’t right that the council has to use its legal powers to compel the airport to release information it has from testing wells.