A plan is expect to be unveiled soon to deal with the biggest illegal dump in the Northern of Ireland.
The cost of dealing with the massive landfill at Mobuoy near Derry could range from £20 million to as much as £250 million.
Around one million tonnes of waste has been dumped at the ‘Blot On The Landscape’ site.
It has been suggested that more than one million tonnes of waste was illegally dumped on the site.
It includes domestic rubbish as well as demolition and construction waste.
A number of men are before the courts on charges linked to the case.
More than £1m has been spent monitoring the site to prevent leachate [waste liquid that drains or leaches from a landfill] reaching the River Faughan.
It runs alongside and supplies Derry with drinking water.
There are also issues with landfill gas.
Plans range from digging all the waste out to leaving some in place with additional protection.
£270,000 has been spent funding five pilot projects to investigate innovative ways of treating the waste and reducing its environmental impact.
They include a Queen’s University proposal for speeding up the rate of decay of the waste.
A plan by the North of Ireland’s Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute for treating the leachate has also been funded.
An English company has come with an idea to grow biomass crops on the land.
It is hoped that if the technologies work, they can be used at other waste sites.
A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) said: “The NIEA is currently identifying and evaluating suitable remediation treatments for managing the waste and its environmental impacts at the Mobuoy Waste site and this is due to report shortly.”
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