Yet another Delta Dawn!

Fish kills in our waterways, airborne coal dust and coal ash, coal ash leeching into streams and lakes and a plethora of cancers that pervade the lives of people living in the northern communities of the Central Coast has residents saying that the NSW Government is failing to protect the environment and to protect the health of its citizens from power stations that are poisoning them.

8 May 2024

ALAN HAYES

 

COAL ash dumps near power stations in the north of the Central Coast have contaminated groundwater, rivers, lakes and aquatic ecosystems and have caused toxic air pollution, which has been blamed, according to residents, on poor government regulation and management.

 

To recap on what the Grapevine has previously reported, a 2019 60-page report, produced by Environmental Justice Australia, which cites research and water sampling done by the Hunter Community Environment Centre, found the creek that takes overflow from the Eraring ash dump had a selenium concentration of 110 parts per million, more than 55 times the level recommended to protect fish and birds.

 

"Communities closest to coal-fired power stations bear the greatest health and environmental burden," Environmental Justice Australia lawyer Bronya Lipski said at the time.

 

"Some of the ash dumps in Australia are very close to communities, including residential areas, schools and recreation centres. Most are extremely close to waterways.

 

"Coal ash dumps are a ticking time bomb. All Australian governments need to act now, not wait for a disaster," Ms Lipski said.

 

Coal ash contains at least 17 toxic heavy metals and pollutants – at most Australian coal-fired power stations, coal ash is mixed with saline wastewater (‘wet disposal’) and pumped into enormous dump sites creating a lethal cocktail of lead, arsenic, mercury, cadmium, chromium, and selenium, all of which can endanger human health, and at least six neurotoxins and five known or suspected carcinogens.

 

And while Lake Macquarie residents were still reeling from the 2019 fish kill, in September 2022 residents of Mannering Park, in the north of the Central Coast on the edge of Lake Macquarie, found that thousands of dead fish and stingrays had washed up along the shore line, allegedly poisoned by the leeching of coal ash toxins into the lake.

 

Another Delta Dawn? Delta Electricity, the operators of the nearby Vales Point power station were quick to “cry – not us”.  But local residents were not convinced of their innocent pleas, neither was the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) going to have any of Delta “feigning the guiltless” either. The EPA has taken Delta to court over the fish deaths.

 

The EPA alleges that its investigations have determined that Delta Electricity breached a condition of its licence by failing to properly maintain its chlorine dosing plant, resulting in a faulty valve discharging concentrated sodium hypochlorite into the lakes waters at Wyee Bay. Sodium hypochlorite is commonly known as bleach.

 

The EPA also says its investigation found that Delta could have prevented the fish kill if they had adequate equipment and processes in place. Not surprisingly, Delta Electricity pleaded not guilty at the first court hearing and the matter is now listed for trial.

 

The fish kill prosecution comes as Delta Coal seeks to expand its coal mining operations at Chain Valley and Mannering coal mines, which supply Vales Point with coal.

 

Delta wants to combine its Chain Valley and Mannering collieries to dig up more coal from beneath Lake Macquarie and extend the life of an aging and polluting power station.

 

What about human health problems that are motivated by a healthy bottom line for the Vales Point power station operators?

 

Sitting on the edge of Mannering Park, Vales Point power station’s smokestacks pump out pollution across homes, a primary school and a playground, as if it were ‘manner from heaven’.

 

Yet locals are kept in the dark as to what the new operators of Vales Point, Czech family investment group Sev.en AG, are up to. Unlike other power stations, there is no community consultative group to keep the community informed.

 

Delta Electricity has a track record of repeatedly seeking exemptions from NSW air pollution laws in order to avoid having to significantly reduce its emissions of toxic air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides, particulates, mercury and sulphur dioxide. An all too familiar trait of the power station owners, who also have a disturbing record overseas of seeking to avoid pollution controls, and extending the operation of coal-fired power stations at the expense of community health.

 

No doubt, Delta Electricity don’t want to confront community issues from their polluting ‘nineteenth-century-technology-polluting-behemoth’, nor the fact that ten kilometres away from the power station, Central Coast residents complain about the black coal dust and toxic air pollution from the site, which has also been recorded as far south as Sydney.

 

Is it any wonder that communities in the north of the Central Coast experience serious health complications that, in many cases, allege have lead to numerous cancers and strokes and severe asthma and low childhood birthweights!

 

In 2011, Dr Peter Lewis, who was then Director of Public Health for the Central Coast and North Sydney, said that the Central Coast had the highest level of avoidable and serious respiratory ailments, because of the power stations, than anywhere else in Australia.

 

The aging power stations are not just causing unprecedented adverse human health problems from the coal dust, but also from the coal ash dams – a problem exacerbated by the wind pattern on the Central Coast.

 

So, why are the wind patterns a problem?

 

In 1986 the following evidence was given by Stafford Ray, then chairman of NSW Farmers Association Central Coast Branch, before the judicial inquiry into a proposed increase in the number of power stations on the Central Coast strip by an additional three 6 Megawatt stations. These same wind patterns trap airborne coal dust and coal ash particulates from the power stations and their coal ash dams. (Commission of Enquiry into Electricity Generation Planning in NSW, Summary of Submissions, The Central Agricultural and Extension Committee, March 1986. R R Merreck, Secretary).

 

The evidence found that “The most common wind over the Central Coast strip between the high ground south of Gosford and hills rising to Charlestown just south of Newcastle, is from the west.

 

"Westerly winds, particularly in Summer, but at other times also, carry warmer air above the 300 metre level than air below the 300 metre level, creating a temperature inversion. That inversion prevents stack emissions from rising through that warm layer of air, trapping it below the 300 metre level.

 

"The entrapped polluted air is initially carried east under the influence of the westerly with which it mixes to some extent. If that polluted air was able to continue east over the sea, it would dissipate. However, cooler sea breezes come from the east, blocking that polluted air, holding it, cooling it and turning it back to flow west below the main westerly air stream.”

 

Coal dust and coal ash fallout zone

 

Coal dust and coal ash travels quickly over a large area on just the slightest breeze. It can quickly reach all the way to Wyong in the south.

 

In that system, the cool sea breeze carries the polluted air west until it strikes the mountain range that lies unbroken behind the whole length of the coastal plain. There it rises. That rising polluted air again strikes the warm upper air stream and is turned east again to flow back towards the sea, until it meets the sea breeze again where it is again turned west. This system keeps a significant proportion of polluted air circulating from west to east, turning back to the west and then turning east again, joining additional stack emissions and airborne coal ash, building pollution concentration while ever that system prevails.

 

“The point where the warm air meets the cooler sea breeze is clearly seen during warm westerly wind systems. About one and a half or three kilometres to sea, a yellowish strip of sulphur dioxide mixing with water (to form sulphuric acid) stretches along most of the coastal strip,” Mr Ray said in his evidence.

 

At the time of the inquiry, most of the coastal strip north of Wyong was sparsely settled and the community was more concerned on the effects added pollutants would have on farm soils and crops. Now, with the in-fill of urban development, there is the added threat of trapped coal dust pollutants’ and coal ash affecting human health.

 

The Commission of Enquiry into Electricity Generation Planning in NSW under commissioner Gavan McDonnell 1985 determined that the base load power was not required and found in favour of the community and the power stations were not built.

 

Despite previous wind pattern evidence, which hasn’t changed, the problem of airborne coal dust and coal ash is only getting worse because of the failure of regulators ensuring that power stations are correctly monitored and exempt from NSW air pollution laws.

 

But what about the air quality in the Central Coast’s northern communities? It continues to have a deleterious impact on human health even though our regulators insist that air quality in the suburbs north of Wyong is within accepted standards. Why? Because the air quality monitor that is used to measure the ‘volatile organ compounds’ and the ‘particulate matter size’ in the air is located at Wyong – not in the heart of the impacted area where the power station is located and people live.

 

What has been done?

 

From chronic illnesses to contaminated land and waterways, Communities in the northern suburbs of the Coast have been calling for better regulation of toxic waste,  in particular coal ash dams, and coal dust emissions from the burning of coal in nearby power stations – but their cries had been falling on deaf ears.

 

As previously reported by the Grapevine, on Tuesday 22 August 2023, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur, Dr Marcus Orellana and Halida Nasic, Human Rights Officer, travelled to the Central Coast to personally listen to resident's issues about the impact of pollution from coal-fired power stations has had on their lives.

 

The Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights said he will investigate and provide detailed, up-to-date information on how the management and disposal of toxic substances and wastes impacts on people’s human rights.

 

Dr Marcus Orellana said, “The health issues that the Central Coast is facing are not just environmental issues but human rights as well – the right of everyone living on the Central Coast to live in a clean and healthy environment.

 

“Air pollution from burning coal has a significant impact on human health – including higher rates of childhood asthma, low birth weight in newborn babies, heart and lung disease, and some cancers.”

 

The UN report found that environmental health costs have often been externalised on communities, who have paid the price with premature deaths, terminal illnesses, asthma and other serious health problems. Certain air quality standards in Australia are less protective than the World Health Organization’s standards, such as Vales Point coal-fired power plant that has been granted exemptions from existing air pollution standards.

 

The report also concluded that ash dams from electricity generation also posed a threat to groundwater and drinking water of local communities. Arsenic and selenium in groundwater have been reported. A 2021 parliamentary inquiry into the cost for remediation of sites containing coal ash repositories in New South Wales expressed concern at the “complete disregard by the Government towards the health of its citizens.”

 

Yet, according to local environment and community groups the NSW EPA have done nothing to solve the problem of airborne coal dust and coal ash problem, nor the leeching of toxins from coal ash dams into our waterways.

 

"The community has lost total faith in the NSW EPA and its C.E.O., Tony Chappel, after standing before a community meeting in December 2023 and failing to respond to several questions regarding health and environmental impacts from coal fired power stations and their coal ash dams," said Lake Munmorah resident Gary Blaschke.

 

So, what can you do as a concerned citizen?

 

You are invited to attend a ‘Citizen Inquiry’ on Sunday 25 August from 1pm to 5pm at the Halekulani Bowling Club and share your experience of living in the shadow of polluted air, or just listen to those encounters of those people.

 

A professional panel of experts and local doctors will be listening and responding to people’s health concerns.

 

Register to attend and tell your story of your health issues – cancers, asthma, etc., and or supply a written submission – at futuresooner@gmail.com or telephone 0424 890 455.