The situation now

 The ecovillage (Sustainable Projects Ireland Limited SPIL) has full planning permission that expires 27/07/2014 on seven unsold sites and on 10/08/2014 on five unsold sites. The board will seek to have these permissions renewed. Could there be a possibility of foregoing renewal on one or more of these sites so that permission could be granted for our site? Building on SPIL’s unsold sites is very unlikely to start any time soon whereas we would start building as soon as we have a piece of paper that says we can.

 On 1 July a Dutch company will be inspecting the Cloughjordan sewage system with a view to offering a solution to the present overload. In addition, they will also look at the ecovillage waste water system. They will also look at our site with a view to coming up with a one-off stand-alone wastewater system to serve the house as an interim measure until the Cloughjordan sewage plant is upgraded. Is a stand-alone system  feasible? Would the planning officer would agree to a stand-alone waste water treatment plant for one house pending upgrade of the Cloughjordan system?

The ecovillage wastewater plant has been up and running since April. Visual inspection of the final effluent has indicated a consistently relatively clear appearance with low settleable solids. The plant was designed to provide a 25:35 / biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) and total suspended solids (TSS) treatment standard. Results obtained to date show that the effluent quality is close to this standard. Samples are being taken at fortnightly intervals. On 19 May there was a meeting at the treatment plant with representatives of Irish Water, a fact-finding exercise by Irish Water concerning the hydraulic and biological loads generated by the ecovillage treatment plant and their impact on the Council’s treatment plant. The issue here seems to be the amount of flow – albeit clean – going through the Cloughjordan town plant.