From Andy Pickup.
THE headline ‘Energy plant will be safe, says MoH’ (JEP, 27 September) was misleading and did not represent the sentiments expressed in the statement given jointly by Drs Geller and Turnbull and Mr Pritchard.

What they actually said was that the energy-from-waste plant will have a net positive effect on health. What this means is that it is not as dangerous as Bellozanne, which everyone knows.

We know that Bellozanne fails to meet EU air quality emissions and should have been shut down years ago. States’ dithering has meant that it is still open and is polluting all around it.

The report goes on to state that the new plant will be ‘more efficient, producing much lower emissions which comply with EU safety standards’. We know this as well, because Bellozanne is so poisonous it breaks just about every known air quality standard.

The final comment about infant mortality does not criticise Dr Van Steenis’s report at all but is a factual report on the current situation. OK, so what is this, then? It sounds like spin doctoring of the least subtle kind and I suspect that Health have been told (or have decided) to make a comment denying the evidence produced by Dr Van Steenis.
Who better to do it than the highly respected MoH and her deputy and a civil servant with a posh title, rather than the minister who should be standing up and saying these things.

I hope they are having a few second thoughts about this during the next few weeks. What would be much more reassuring for the Jersey population, especially those who live in the ‘fume path’ of the new energy-from-waste plant – that is, in a north-easterly direction from La Collette (through town to Howard Davis Park, Mont Millais and St Saviour’s Road to Five Oaks, St Martin etc) – would be statements denying or accepting the following comments from Dr Van Steenis:
• ‘The incineration of waste vaporises heavy metals, making the particles emitted even more lethal when you inhale them into your lungs.’

• ‘Illnesses caused by incinerators include birth defects, heart disease, heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, asthma, respiratory infections and cancer.’

• ‘Many behaviour problems can be caused, such as individuals becoming depressed, turning to crime or even suicide as a result of inhaling the harmful emissions.’

Could they also comment on the effects of dioxins, furans, heavy metals, oxides of nitrogen and oxides of sulphur, along with fine particulate matter which will still be produced from the new incinerator? (The States’ Solid Waste Strategy report).

And what of the fact that EU limits are almost twice those of the US in respect of toxic waste production?
La Fleurie,
Highfield Vineries,
St Saviour.