The problem has been going on for over a year now, with residents and pre-school children being forced indoors due to the odour, particular on dry or warm days when the stench is even stronger. Local businesses are also losing custom due to the issue. 

 

Anna McKenna from Little Treasures Playgroup described the smell as “desperate” and explained  it was having an impact on both the children and staff of the award-winning service. “It’s a really dirty, horrible smell,” she said. “It’s awful, and some days its worse than others.

 

“We have a lovely outdoor play area here, and there are days we just can’t use it because of the smell, even though getting outside is something we want to encourage with the children. It’s a health and safety issue. 

 

It’s not as bad for adults, but these toxins tend to be lower down to the ground, at the children’s level. It’s affecting the little ones straight on. It’s also affecting staff, who are getting headaches from the smell. 

 

“We strive to provide an excellent service and we have won awards for it, but there is nothing we can do to stop this. We can’t provide all the services we want as we can’t use our outdoor facilities, and the smell is worse in hot weather. Thankfully, we can’t smell it from inside here.”

 

Along with residents and business owners in the village, Ms McKenna met with local MLA Sean Lynch and two officials from Northern Ireland Water (NI Water) on Friday, October 16 to discuss the issue. She said the meeting was positive and constructive, but expressed concerns about how long it may take to resolve the issue. 

 

“They said they are going to have to look at funding options,” she said. “If they are talking about funding who knows how long that will take. It’s already been going on too long.”

Sean Lynch MLA said on the day of the site visit with NI Water two weeks ago the stench was obvious. “I brought the NI Water officials out to Kinawley where met with residents and business owners, who expressed their difficulties with the odour,” said Mr Lynch. “ NI Water acknowledged there was an difficulty and are now exploring two options and are going to come back to us with a solution.”

 

Mr Lynch explained that sewerage systems required “breathers” to stop the gaseous sewage within from exploding, and the Kinawley odour problem resulted in the breathers on the system coming from Killesher being placed in proximity to the village.  

 

He explained: “One possibility is to treat the sewage with chemicals, but that is expensive in the long run. 

The other possibility is to bring the system on a couple of hundred meters to the main sewage treatment plant.”

 

NI Water said following the site visit in Kinawley they have agreed “to explore a few different options to resolve the odour problems in the local area.”

“An NI Water contractor carried out some test excavations last week to progress the resolution to the problem,” a spokesman said.  “We will continue to liaise with the local community and hope to have agreed a proposal to resolve the issue by the end of November. NI Water would like to thank the residents and local representatives for their co-operation while we complete this investigation work.”