Decision day for incinerator

Tuesday 8th July 2008, 3:00PM BST.

By Harry McRandle

STATES Members are today debating proposals for the Island’s most expensive ever public capital project.

They must decide whether to spend £106 million on commissioning a new energy-from-waste plant at La Collette, close to the JEC power station, and using the existing tower to allow gases to escape safely into the atmosphere.

The proposition, to be put by Transport Minister Guy de Faye, will be vehemently opposed by the Environment Scrutiny Panel who have investigated the proposals.

Deputy de Faye will argue that the need for the new plant is now urgent and that any further delay in making a decision would be ‘catastrophic’, given that the existing Bellozanne plant keeps breaking down and will never again be able to run at full capacity.

Six months worth of work at a cost of £750,000 to repair the damage to the chimney is currently underway. Steeplejacks are working in hazardous conditions at heights from 80 to 100 metres to make the top of the structure safe again.

• JEP photographer Tony Pike went to the top to take these pictures

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1
Jean Jones

July 8, 2008 at 4:29 pm

Congratulations to Tony Pike for his wonderful pictures from the top of the Bellozanne chimney. Not a job for the faint-hearted!!

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2
Michael Ryan

July 9, 2008 at 9:34 am

Why is Jersey ignoring the fact that the City of Ottawa has just agreed to have plasma gasification to deal with 400 tonnes per day of municipal waste?

Plasma gasification is the cheapest & safest method of waste disposal and should be adopted throughout the world.

The Health Protection Agency have admitted in FoI response to me that they have not examined any health or mortality rates at electoral ward level around any incinerator. That means that their advice that incinerators pose no harm to health has no scientific base. Both the Dorking Advertiser and the Surrey Mirror reported the HPA’s failing on 22 May 2008, articles can be seen via links on left hand side of http://www.ukhr.org

London has 625 electoral wards, if City of London counted as a single ward, and twenty-two of them had zero infant deaths during each of the five years 2002-2006. These “zero” infant death wards were the ones with minimal exposure to PM2.5 emissions from incinerators.

The 51 London electoral wards with very high infant death rates, ie greater than or equal to 9.0 per 1,000 live births, can be seen by their locations to be exposed to incinerator emissions.

If you think an infant mortality rate of 9.0 per 1,000 “isn’t that bad really”, bear in mind that the 51 bad London electoral wards had a total of 51,983 live births and 565 infant deaths recorded in the five years 2002-2006 while the 22 “zero infant death wards” had 13,655 live births and no funerals with tiny coffins.

I’ve done this research because my wife & I have buried two of our children, having lived near an incinerator.

Michael Ryan,
Shrewsbury

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3
Paul Wilkinson

November 28, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Indeed, many congratulations to Tony for his photos.

I did the same climb in the 1990s when working for Halcrow on upgrading the sewage treatment works, and took photos from the top with both 35mm and 6×6 camera outfits. Carrying these two systems up all those ladders put great strain on my arms – it took 10 minutes for them to stop shaking when project manager Chris and I reached the top.

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