Clean-up of one of Europe's largest illegal dumps 'could begin in 2028'

PA Media

Work to clean up one of Europe’s largest illegal landfill sites could start in 2028 and take up to five years to complete, Northern Ireland’s environment minister has said.

The contaminated Mobuoy dump at Campsie in County Londonderry, discovered in 2013, was used to bury thousands of tonnes of rubbish at a site spanning more than 100 acres.

Last year, two businessmen were jailed for their part in the operation.

Stormont’s Environment Minister Andrew Muir said the site’s remediation – previously estimated to cost more than £100m – was “non-negotiable” and “must take place”.

“There’s a number of actions that will take place as part of that remediation and it will take place over a number of years but it must occur because people of the area deserve that,” Muir told BBC Radio Foyle’s North West Today programme.

He said his department was now trying to get a “final cost estimate” for the work.

That needed “proper process”, he said, so “the figures we are going to seek funding for are figures we can stand over”.

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That process will take up to three months, Muir said, and would allow a final remediation strategy to be adopted, a business case prepared and funding to be secured – which could take another five months.

Muir added that the procurement of contractors could take place in April 2027, which may take nine to 12 months.

The minister said the large-scale works would require financial support from the UK government and take between three and five years to complete, due to “the complexity of the site”.

Last week Muir met local politicians to update them on the planned remediation of the site.

But SDLP MLA Mark H Durkan, a former environment minister, told BBC Radio Foyle he was “disappointed” by the lack of new information.

Speaking on Friday, Durkan said work starting at the site in 2028 at the earliest was “indicative of a lack of urgency”.

“People here have been waiting far too long already for this issue to be resolved,” he said.

“People will be aware of the pressures on the public purse and I am not confident it will be prioritised by the executive because thus far we haven’t seen this treated as a priority.”

Clean-up bill could be over £100m

The figure for the potential repair bill is contained in 2022/23 accounts from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera), which were published in February 2024.

At the time, officials estimated the cost at between £17m and £700m – however, that top figure would only apply if all of the waste was dug up and transported elsewhere, which is not what Muir’s department is planning to do.

The most recent estimate stands at £107m to clean up the site using a range of pollution prevention measures.

However, that £107m figure is a “point in time” estimate, which is likely to rise the longer it takes to finalise the proposals and put them into action.

Over 1.5m tonnes of waste

Martin McKeown

Investigations at the Mobuoy site indicate an estimated 1.6m tonnes of waste was present at the site and 627,000 tonnes of that was believed to have been dumped illegally.

The area of polluted ground stretches to about 100 acres, or the equivalent of about 65-70 football pitches.

Some of the rubbish dates back as far as the 1960s but the illegal waste was linked to two businessmen who were jailed for their role in the scandal in June last year.

Paul Doherty, of Culmore Road, admitted seven charges between 2007 and 2013 relating to the contaminated dump and was sentenced to one year in prison.

Co-defendant Gerard Farmer, of Westlake in Derry, pleaded guilty to three charges between 2011 and 2013 and was jailed for 21 months.

The judge at Londonderry Crown Court said both defendants had “acted deliberately” and been “entirely motivated by financial gain”.

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