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There has been a call for clarification over a contentious plan to build and operate an incinerator powered by chicken droppings.
The construction project is already mired in claim and counter-claim as developers and residents slog-it out over the plans for a large scale electricity-generating incinerator near the shores of Belfast Lough.
South Antrim MLA Thomas Burns has now said he is concerned that officials of the Department of Agriculture are backing the Rose Energy project for the chicken waste incinerator at Glenavy.
He said: "Officials have told the Assembly Agriculture Committee that incineration is the best technology for disposal of the chicken waste.
"As far as we know, Sinn Féin Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew who has political control of the Department opposes incineration – she certainly did when a similar plant was proposed for Co Cavan bordering on her constituency.
"And the local Sinn Féin party in South Antrim constantly assure us that they are opposed to the Glenavy plant," he said.
"We take the view that this issue is too important to be decided on the views of a few officials whose duty is to implement policy rather than formulate it.
"From the very beginning we said that the only way to properly consider all the issues was to hold a public inquiry where the DARD officials can be invited to put their views forward," he insisted yesterday.
Last summer, Lisburn City Council said it would refer the planning application to build an incinerator close to Lough Neagh to public inquiry.
The council took the decision after Rose Energy outlined plans to build a power plant near Glenavy to convert chicken litter and bone meal into energy.
Campaigners against the plant said it will damage the Lough's ecosystem by extracting 3.8 million litres of water per day to cool the incinerator, and then pumping much of the 'waste' water back into this major source of drinking water.
A European Directive means NI's poultry industry must come up with alternative ways of disposing of poultry waste or face huge fines.
(BMcC/GK)
