Campaigners against plans to excavate caverns for gas storage under Larne Lough took to its shores last weekend to reaffirm their opposition to the proposals.
And as Belfast Live reports, the protest at Browns Bay Beach on Sunday 7 January also heralded their upcoming hearing at the Court of Appeal, following on from last August’s dismissal of their application for judicial review.
Islandmagee Energy, a subsidiary of Infrastrata-owned Harland and Wolff, won a marine licence to excavate seven 1,350m-deep caverns under the lough when Edwin Poots, then minister at the Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA), green-lit the project in November 2021.
The works would result in up to 24,000 cubic metres of brine being discharged into the inlet every day — a prospect that environmentalists and other campaigners say will have a significant impact on marine wildlife and habitats that they argue has not been properly assessed.
Belfast Live has much more on the story HERE.
