A community living in the shadow of ‘towering monstrosity’ Aughinish Alumina has called for a public inquiry into its possible health and environmental impacts.
The Aughinish Alumina plant was built on the Limerick bank of the Shannon in 1983 and is now the biggest bauxite refinery in Europe producing 1.9 million tonnes of alumina a year.
With that output comes 50-75 million tonnes of rising ‘red mud’ stored in open pits near two protected nature sites. The lake of mud covers a 450-acre site next to the Shannon estuary.
