Another success to tell you about as the Commissioner for Environmental Information orders release of a register of the locations of 1,223 locations around Ireland where abstraction of water takes place.
Examples of this would be dairy, beef, and horticultural farming, data centre cooling, quarrying, and other industrial uses.
Some pretty remarkable parts of the case included:
- The EPA claiming that personal information exemptions applied even though much of the register comprised companies, organisations, and state bodies.
- The Department of Agriculture pressured the EPA not to release a list of farms pumping from rivers.
- The EPA bizarrely claimed disclosure of the locations could leave them vulnerable to “vandalism”.
You can read the full decision below. Also, a really good long read from TheJournal.ie including an interview with our co-director Ashley Glover.