Donald Trump has withdrawn his plan to build a 2.8 kilometer (1.7 mile)-long limestone sea wall on his golf course on the west coast of Ireland.
Trump International Golf Links & Hotel, Doonbeg, made its original construction application to Clare County Council in May. They said the wall—which would span up to four meters in height and 20 meters in width, at a cost of €10m ($10.7 million)—was needed to “protect the golf course and sand dunes from excessive erosion” by severe storms.
Trump’s team now plans to submit a proposal for a new, smaller version of the wall that, it is hoped, would be approved more quickly. According to Save the Waves, a California-based non-profit, would span a distance of 650 meters at one end and 250 meters at the other. Clare County Council said it had not yet received a new application.
Local residents and businesses are said to have supported the proposal, but Trump’s team faced opposition from environmental campaigners. Save The Waves, which garnered over 100,000 signatures in its petition against the wall, said in a statement:
Construction of this seawall threatened to destroy the sand dune habitat, restrict public access to the beach, negatively impact the quality of the surfing waves, and ultimately result in beach loss.
Dunes on the local Doughmore Bay beach where the golf course is located have already been eroded by storms in recent years. In the original application documents, Trump’s company put this down to “more extreme Atlantic storms and sea level rise.” According to the BBC, one of the application documents noted that ”the rising sea levels and increased storm frequency and wave energy associated with global warming can increase the rate of erosion”—a somewhat ironic stance given Trump’s skepticism of climate change.