Stormont Environment Minister Edwin Poots has approved plans for a controversial chicken waste incinerator in the Co Antrim village of Glenavy.
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The facility will provide up to 400 jobs in construction and 20 permanent jobs once complete, the minister said.
The £40m power plant will incinerate 260,000 tonnes of chicken waste per year - including poultry bedding and meat and bone meal - to produce 30 mega-watts of electricity.
The planning application was submitted in June 2008 by Rose Energy, a group backed by O'Kane Poultry, Moy Park and Glenfarm Holdings.
It has met opposition from local residents, who say the facility will blight Glenavy's rural landscape and the natural beauty of the Lough Neagh area.
The environment minister says he has considered arguments from the community but approved the plant as it will "further stimulate the local economy".
"I am fully aware of both the opposition and support for the power plant," the DUP minister said.
"Having given the proposal careful consideration, including visiting the site and viewing it from Lough Neagh, I am satisfied that on balance it should be approved.
"It is an example of investment that can contribute in many ways, providing long-term work, generating power, supporting local agriculture, and related industries.
"It will also have indirect employment and investment benefits in connection with Belfast Port and the haulage industry in Northern Ireland."
Opposition
Communities Against the Lough Neagh Incinerator (CALNI) say it will launch a legal challenge against the decision.
"This is one of the worst planning decisions ever made in Northern Ireland," said CALNI President Danny Moore.
"Almost 7,000 people submitted objections to the application - the highest number of objections ever submitted against a planning application in Northern Ireland.
"At the very least, there is irrefutable evidence that this planning application should go to a public inquiry."
The group says it has spent £350,000 to date fighting the plant, which includes employing consultants who they say have found 30 better suited sites for the incinerator.
Sinn Fein MEP Bairbre de Brún has slammed the minister's decision as "crazy".
"The Minister's decision to approve the proposal is crazy. We don't need this plant. There are more environmentally friendly ways of disposing of chicken litter and this incinerator will cause untold problems in the area and further afield."
Green Party spokesperson Steven Agnew said the incinerator was the "wrong technology in the wrong location."
"Plans to build this incinerator should have been opened up to a public inquiry. Given the enormous impact that this incinerator will have on the local community and the local environment it is wholly irresponsible of Minister Poots to give approval for these plans without full public scrutiny of the scheme.
"This is the wrong technology in the wrong location and given the level of public subsidy that will be involved it is also wrong economically."
SDLP South Antrim MLA Thomas Burns said residents in the Crumlin-Glenavy area were very disappointed.
"There are concerns about the access for the site and if the villages of Crumlin and Glenavy will have to ferry all the lorry traffic. To say the local people are disappointed is an understatement and the feeling here is that this sort of site belongs in an industrial estate."
Alliance Lagan Valley MLA Trevor Lunn said a public inquiry was "the only way to go".
"This site is environmentally sensitive and there are too many unanswered questions as to the incinerator's effect on air quality and the likelihood of toxic residue in the immediate area and beyond. Also the effect on Lough Neagh and the Glenavy River is unknown and there are very significant transport issues to be addressed", Mr Lunn said.
But Rose Energy say there are significant environmental benefits from the incinerator, including dealing with the difficult issue of processing animal waste, meeting nitrates targets and generating renewable energy.
Mr Poots says the poultry industry generates an income of more than £2m to Belfast Port, bringing in 680,000 tonnes of feed annually which generates significant haulage work to enable distribution across the region.
The Department of the Environment says a study from a group of experts on manure disposal found that combustion is the only proven technology for disposing of chicken litter.
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