26/07/2005 - Whangarei:
Mighty River Power’s proposal to convert Marsden
B to a coal-fired power station would not
be permitted in other countries such as the
US, Japan, Germany and Sweden, a Greenpeace
expert witness informed the Northland Regional
Council’s hearing on the proposal today.
Greenpeace tabled evidence from a world-renowned
environmental scientist with over 35 years
of experience in environmental assessment
of power plants and other facilities, Dr Phyllis
Fox. Dr Fox’s curriculum vitae stretches to
27 pages of work on coal fired power plants
and work on emissions. She is listed in a
number of international “Who’s Who” publications.
The Marsden evidence ignores many of the
problems we have been struggling for decades
to solve retrospectively,” she said, and described
a number of techniques that could have been,
but have not, been adopted.
Dr Fox described clouds of sulphuric acid,
which impact residents around coal-fired power
plants, causing burning eyes, headaches and
sore throats, even when plants are equipped
with scrubbers, and told of one case in which
an entire town in Ohio was purchased by the
operator following health problems from such
sulphuric acid emissions to avoid litigation.
Giving evidence for Greenpeace today was
Dr Greg Miller, an environmental scientist
from Queensland, Australia, who has practised
environmental chemistry for 32 years. He said
that the cost of coal includes the release
of greenhouse gas - 2 million tonnes of carbon
dioxide every year, and the social and environmental
costs on a regional and local scale.
Dr Miller evaluated the true economic cost
of coal power, and said “If basic environmental
and health-related costs are included in the
cost of electricity generation, then a clean
technology such as wind energy, would become
more economically viable.”
“This project had a low degree of sustainability
in terms of natural and physical resources
and waste production, contaminant discharges
to air, water and land, and availability of
renewable energy resources in New Zealand,”
he concluded.
Another senior environmental consultant from
Queensland, Shelley Anderson, said that variations
in the assumptions used by Mighty River Power
in predicting sulphur dioxide concentrations
could produce ground level concentrations
of sulphur dioxide that exceed national standards.
Shelley Anderson told the hearing that “carbon
dioxide emissions could cause acidification
of the oceans which could affect marine lifeh.
Mercury and arsenic emissions from Marsden
B could concentrate in fish and shellfish
affecting human health.”
Duncan Currie, legal counsel to Greenpeace,
said “Many adverse environmental effects,
particularly of the discharges to air, water,
and the effects of the carbon dioxide emissions
on climate change, meant that the proposal
did not promote the sustainable management
of natural and physical resources under the
Resource Managment Act, so the consents should
not be granted.”
“The application should be rejected as air
pollution would likely breach Air Quality
Guidelines, it would allow mercury into the
food chain and the water pollution would significantly
impact marine life,” concluded Mr Currie.
“No company that is serious about long term
sustainability in environmental, economic
or social terms could even consider proposing
a coal-fired power station in this age of
climate change and increased awareness about
the effects of chemicals such as mercury and
dioxin on the environment,” said Greenpeace
climate campaigner, Vanessa Atkinson.
Greenpeace also reacted to National’s proposed
changes to the Resource Management Act. Brash’s
proposal would mean people not directed affected
by a project would be unable to have a say.
“Marsden B is of national significance and
will have global impacts through climate change,
but if Mr Brash were to be elected, nobody
outside Northland, and even no environmental
groups, would be allowed to make any submissions
on the project,” said Atkinson.
“Further if National removed the environmental
legal fund, even people directly affected
by mercury, dioxins, sulphur dioxides and
other pollutants from Marsden B for the next
35 or more years, would have to fight Mighty
River and its huge legal and evidential team
completely on their own,” said Atkinson.
