November 02, 2003
After the Mudrush
It was reported in the papers during the week that 550 animals were killed in the landslide at Pollatomish - the cause of the landslide has still not been established. Meanwhile, I paid another visit to the scene of the Derrybrien landslide yesterday morning. It is not a pretty sight. When I was there two weeks ago, the slide had been halted before a bridge on the bog road at Derrybrien north. since then, the slide resumed, overwhelming the bridge, and continuing down the hill. About 300 metre downhill lies the R353, the road linking Portumna to Gort. The flow of peat slurry followed the path of a stream and it hit the road at a bridge completely smothering it, and continuing down into the valley below.
Earlier today, the clean-up operation was underway. The two roads have been cleared, but the damage to the hills, fields, and more importantly, the water system is incalculable. The escavations are being done by a combined team from Galway County Council and Hibernian Windpower, the company building the windfarm in the area. It looks like there is a two-pronged plan to tackle the problem. Firstly, scoop out the peat slurry from the affected streams and drains to minimize further pollution, and get the drainage system of the area working again. The other part of the plan is to erect a series of barriers (or dams) to try to halt further slides.
The barriers haven't worked so far. Not because they aren't constructed properly, but simply because they are not high enough. Well, why not build them bigger ? Between the the bog road and the main road (which were both inundated), there is a drop of more than 30 metres (to give it some perspective, the height of the round tower in Kilmacduagh is 35 metres, and the top of the dome in Galway Cathedral is 45 metres tall). OK, well why not build barriers further up the hill, near the start of the landslide. The entire area from where the slide began covers about 70 acres (about 28 hectares or 283,500 square metres). What's needed is not just a few piles of boulders and gravel damming up streams but a plan to stabilise the whole area - to prevent a gigantic glutinous mass converting potential to kinetic energy by detaching itself from the hillside and trundling down the hill at speed, smothering all in its path.
Stabilising the bog won't be easy. We are now definitely in the rainy season. there has been relatively little rain in the last two weeks, but yet the slide intensified. What will happen when there is a bout of prolonged rain ? Since I left the site yesterday, it has rained heavily. Yesterday, there was a constant stream of trucks along the back road, moving gravel to build an access road, so that escavators can begin building barriers near the origin of the mudslide. Even this level of disturbance will not help matters...
I've spread the photos over three entries to speed up the loading times - the image files are larger than normal (circa 150k each) for better detail.
The follow photographs were taken at the bog road, which is about 30-40 metres above the village.
Two weeks ag, the mudslide had halted at the point where the escavator can be seen.
Two weeks ago, the slide was quite a distance from the bridge - now the rampart has been swept away, the bridge has been completely choked with debris, and debris lies at least one and a half metres of debris above the level of the road.
The view on the other side of the bridge isn't much better. Instead of a small stream gushing between the pine trees (on the right of the picture below), there is an ugly ditch where the diggers have tried to scoop out the slurry. In the centre of the picture, there should be a row of trees, the slurry bulldozed them out of the way, on the way down to the main road.
On the main road (R353), a row of boulders were placed beside the rampart of the bridge, in an attempt to dam the flow. Made no difference - the flow simply went over it. As you can see, the bed of the stream is 8 to 10 feet below the level of the road at the bridge.
Posted by Monasette at November 2, 2003 11:00 AMMy friends, there is a very simple reason why we are witnessing a mud slide in Derrybrien. Geogologists have been employed to explain the cause or causes. The wind farm will not be deemed responsable as the true and simple reason for the slide occuring will be overlooked.
The earth is a living creature, and the mountains very often are found to be accupuncture points on the land or areas on a mountain will be found to be accupuncture points. Since the mountain is a living element, it has its own resonent frequency which will have evolved over many thousands of years. In the case of Derrybrien, the construction work that has taken place on the mountain has clearly interferred with the resonent frequency in the mountain, this is a very subtle energy field, but the altereration is such that the catalytic propertiesof the water which bind the peat and water together have now been damaged and the seperation of the two elements has taken place with the result that two slides have now taken place. The building of dams will not alter this breakdown in the structure of the bog, rather it will fuel the dis-harmony in the water/peat and is likely to result in a larger more dramatic style landslide in the future. This situation can be harmonised using the technology of our forefathers, the wind farm can proceed and the people can live in safety in Derrybrien. Should Galway Co. Council and Hibernian Windpower decide to ignore the real underlying causes behind the land slide, then the future of the wind farm will be in doubt and many future wind farm projects will never get pass the planning stage due to the experiance in Derrybrien. For those people who are interested in contacting me:- ciaran@nordic.ie