NEWS THAT MATTERS
Passing the political buck
on human health
When it comes coal-fired power stations, both sides of major politics pretend to live and breathe the human tragedy of those living in the shadow of fly-ash central, but do little, if anything to solve the problem. They ‘talk-the-talk’, we moving to renewables, but don’t ‘walk-the-walk’ to the answer that’s staring them in the face – concentrated solar thermal energy (CSTE). And the Grapevine has dealt with CSTE before - so why are our politicians still buried deep in the piles of coal ash? Is it because their brains haven’t generated enough power to have the ‘light-bulb’ moment?
Vales Point Power Station.
26 July 2023
ALAN HAYES
COAL, which is pulverized and then burned to generate electricity, produces particles that remain after the burning of the coal. This coal ash, principally consisting of fly ash, contains some of the earth's deadliest toxins: arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and selenium, as well as cobalt, copper, lead, lithium, mercury, molybdenum, thallium and uranium.
The storage of this ash in gigantic ‘ash dams’ contaminate surface waters and underground aquifers, causing cancer and neurological harm in humans and poisoning of fish.
Fly ash can become lodged in the deepest part of your lungs, where it triggers asthma, inflammation and immunological reactions. Short-term exposure can bring irritation of the nose and throat, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and shortness of breath. Long-term exposure can lead to liver damage, kidney damage, cardiac arrhythmia, and a variety of cancers.
Communities in the northern suburbs of the Central Coast are continually at serious risk from poorly managed coal ash waste. Yet despite recent studies in Australia that has revealed shocking flaws in the management and regulation of coal ash dumps, our governments are slow to act – a snail could move faster.
The insidious health impact on human health, from aging power stations, which were to close, and still remaining open is unacceptable.
Remember energy entrepreneur Trevor St Baker and coal investor Brian Flannery, who famously bought the Vales Point generator for $1 million from the NSW government in 2015 and then revalued it at $722 million two years later, selling it to the Czechs, knowing that it was destined to close in the short term. The new Czech owner, the family run company Sev.en Global Investments, certainly had no intention to buy a ‘pig-in-a-poke’ - they were there for the profit, regardless of the impact on human health.
Sev.en Global Investments recently advised the energy market operator that a full assessment of the equipment at the plant has shown the generator’s technical life will last beyond the original expectation of 2029 – in fact they maintain it will operate until 2033.
Delta Electricity (Sev.en Global Investments), maintain that the aim of this assessment was to give the Electricity Statement of Opportunities (ESOO) with an evaluation of the existing generation equipment, ash dam capacity, and overall condition of the power plant.
How many coal ash-related deaths until then?
So, where the hell are the politicians? It appears that supporting the power station workforce and the owners is more important than the health of people living in the top end of the Coast. Which raises the question, "how far does this unequivocal support extend for the major political parties?" For decades, the very communities that people live in have had to suffer daily from an emissions overload, which does not even rate a political mention.
Whilst it is easy to reach out to aid people who suffer various diseases by giving to foundations or by running, or jogging in numbers, the other kids and adults who suffer daily with asthma, bronchitis and other URTI diseases, due to power station fallout, are continually ignored. Governments continue to sit on their hands, ignoring the problem, and have continued to do so for almost 40 years since power station pollution began to hit local headlines.
Raising the ongoing community health problems with health bodies or within the halls of Parliament has been meet with nothing more than expressionless indifference.
It is the tireless efforts of community groups, such as the Hunter Community Environment Centre, Future Sooner, Coal Ash Community Alliance and the Community Environment Network, who have been exceptional and unrelenting in raising the problems associated with coal-fired powers stations and fly ash dams, and continuance to do so that has raised the awareness of this stealthy cancer.
60 million tonnes of toxic coal ash at Lake Macquarie.
The fly ash problem extends to another insidious regime as well! Two large fish kills in the lakes last year were clearly the result of outlet imbalance from Vales Point, either by chlorine overdose or by sudden thermal overheating impact, or another chemical contamination.
So, what are our regulators and politicians doing? Still sitting on their hands? The EPA investigated the September 2022 fish kill, yet, almost twelve months later, they have not released their findings as to the cause of this catastrophe. One local State MP, Yasmin Catley, said at the time, she would “turn over every stone” to get to the bottom of why the fish kill occurred.
Community activist Mike Campbell said, “We’ve heard nothing since from her or any authority. Go back to your homes,” he said, “we will inform you in due course.”
Mr Campbell said, “Despite community groups raising the problem of special dispensations, the NSW Government’s special deal for Vales Point Power Station to pollute the air well beyond the required limits still continues.”
“Political interest in peoples’ health has been zilch,” he said.
Gary Blaschke OAM, community stalwart and spokesperson for Future Sooner group, said that “...after decades of raising air and water pollution concerns plus health issues by local doctors and the general community of the Central Coast, along with face to face meetings with the Public Health Units, NSW Planning, many directors of the EPA and most Central Coast members of parliament, nothing has changed.”
“the Legislative Council Public Works Committee Inquiry (March 2021) into coal ash dams and its 16 recommendations have never been completed to date. Yet now with the attention focusing on a visit by a United Nations special representative looking into human rights and the toxicity of the region, health concerns and environmental impacts, all levels of government may now suddenly look at things differently!” Mr. Blaschke said.
The findings of the 2017 Federal Senate Inquiry into Early Retirement of Coal-fired Power Stations, in its nine recommendations, said that “the committee recommends that the Australian Government commission a comprehensive and independent assessment of the health impacts of coal fired power stations”.
The Senate Inquiry further recommended that the Federal Government develop a load-based licensing arrangement for adoption at COAG, and that the Australian Government take additional measures to ensure compliance with the NEPM Air Quality measures in the case of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, (requiring) international best practice standards.
So, why haven’t the Senate Inquiry recommendations been implemented? The State’s (COAG) refused to accept the findings, mainly due to the Coalition Senator's, Linda Reynolds, Jonathon Duniam, Jane Hume and Chris Back, “Dissenting Report” against the recommendations.
Not once in their dissenting report did the Coalition Senators refer to important evidence from ‘Doctors for the Environment’ - Doctors Ben Ewald and John Van Der Kallen - about health statistics and the overt problem of child asthma in those living near power complexes. Pandering to ‘King Coal’, economics and self-perpetuating governance far outweigh the problems of childhood lung disease caused by coal-fired power generation - now or in the future.
There are numerous links about the various US studies into cancers caused by coal-fired power station emissions and fly ash and in this country by Environmental Justice Australia.
Studies have unequivocally found that coal ash cannot be disposed of safely. Even with best practice methods, there remains a significant contamination risk to the environment and communities.
Regulation is wholly inadequate and reporting information is not available to community scrutiny without resorting to Freedom of Information. Regulators don’t require operators to maintain a bond or financial assurance for toxic coal ash dumps nor to prepare best-practice rehabilitation and closure plans, and have not planned for future monitoring and maintenance of ash dumps into the future.
Mike Campbell said, “the new Labor Governments, Federal and in NSW, need to distance themselves from the ideas of Coalition parliamentarians.”
“They had better smarten up and become co-ordinated in implementing health studies as recommended by both the aforementioned State and Federal Inquiries,” he said.
“If they don’t, then international interest, beginning this September, and history too, will publicly damn them, and ask Where the bloody hell were you?”
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Hunter Community Environment Centre, Future Sooner, Coal Ash Community Alliance and the Community Environment Network will be holding information stalls at Wyee Markets on Saturday August 12, September 9, and at the Living Smart Festival at Speers Point on September 18, talking about the health of the lakes, seagrass die-back, fish kills and toxic air quality around the southern lakes.
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