Are we in another fine mess?

Wednesday 27th January 2010, 3:00PM GMT.

ALTHOUGH the Environment department has emphatically pleaded not guilty to all charges of irregular conduct in respect of the new incinerator at La Collette, a year-long Scrutiny investigation has posed serious questions about the project.

The body responsible for the investigation, the Environment Scrutiny panel, will, of course, say that it has provided answers rather than posing questions. In spite of this, the reality of the situation is that ordinary Islanders are in a poor position to judge whether Environment has done its duty or whether it has presided over processes that have ridden rough-shod over the protection of part of the coastline that is internationally recognised as being of great ecological importance.

The absolute refusal of Environment Minister Freddie Cohen to accept the Scrutiny panel’s findings on alleged breaches of duty under the Ramsar Convention on the protection of wetlands, the alleged withholding of information and alleged risk of pollution is unlikely to undermine the confidence of panel chairman Deputy Phil Rondel in the findings of what certainly appears to have been a thorough inquiry.

Fortunately, there is a way out of the likely impasse – and one that is capable of providing substantive information of far greater importance than any real or imagined breakdown in the planning process.

Quite simply, the issue of whether lapses that may have allowed tidal water to mix with toxic ash have caused substantial pollution can be settled by measurement. The quality of water at Havre des Pas has, apparently, been checked and has been found to meet international standards. If we are to be satisfied that there have been no damaging leaks, the beach and seabed deposits and the area’s fauna and flora should also be assayed for contaminants.

If, as the Environment Scrutiny panel insist, the entire energy-from-waste plant planning process was seriously flawed, that is clearly important, but it is also history. The consequences of any lapses are now the matters of overwhelming concern.

That said, Scrutiny’s report suggests that there are more general lessons to be learned from the incinerator project – irrespective of its ultimate ecological impact.

In particular, the finding that ‘everyone just assumed’ that the plant was going to be built is disturbing. Everything from the immense size of the final building to the sensitivity of the site on which it is being built should have ensured that nothing was taken for granted and every possible eventuality was considered.

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Tony

January 27, 2010 at 6:17 pm

You wrote.’Quite simply, the issue of whether lapses that may have allowed tidal water to mix with toxic ash have caused substantial pollution can be settled by measurement. The quality of water at Havre des Pas has, apparently, been checked and has been found to meet international standards. If we are to be satisfied that there have been no damaging leaks, the beach and seabed deposits and the area’s fauna and flora should also be assayed for contaminants.’

This is a simplistic and flawed view of the problem at a number of levels. Firstly if you read the Jersey Aquaculture Submission to the scrutiny panel you will find substantial detail regarding risk and obligations . This is an extract and relates to the proposed new discharge permit.
‘The ambient concentration of Cadmium in seawater varies with salinity but in Jersey context should be in the 0.005 parts per million region . It is this level that would provide the 1 part per million estimate within oysters , mussels and scallops within culture locally.
This is known as the Steady-State Condition ( Luoma and Rainbow 2005) and represents a balance between the bioaccumulation of cadmium into the shellfish and its excretion.
If ,however, the cadmium level in the dietary phase (absorbed into phytoplankton that is consumed as food) and in the dissolved phase (the seawater the animals reside within ) is even slightly elevated then the concentration of cadmium within the bivalves can increase very rapidly. (Ke and Wang 2001)
Recent work (Shumway and Rodrick 2009) summarises the lack of certainty in this area and then outlines the extreme variations between conditions and species leading to little or massive bioaccumulation of cadmium .This means that predicting that ‘x’ discharge above ambient is ‘safe’ is unrealistic and unsupportable by current scientific data .
The potential of even a small above ambient discharge of cadmium into controlled waters to render the products of Jersey aquaculture unsaleable due to exceeding EU Directive Criteria is a very real one ( the Italy/ Brown Crab event that effected local exports in 2008 should be regarded here). Bearing in mind that this high profile and developing industry is worth £2M to the local economy and rising rapidly , that is a significant risk. Also that ‘reasonable grounds for concern ‘obliges the minister to take preventive measures in anticipation of the risk , is enshrined in the Law.’

More than that is the question Why have the species chosen to be ‘indicator species ‘ over the past twenty years NOT included commercially relevant species but most of all ones known to NOT bioaccumulate heavy metals . It would have been very easy to test oysters that absorb Zinc and therefore Cadmium (similar chemistry) but there has been a steadfast refusal to do so. The answer I suggest is self evident.

So it has not been properly looked for, and the Minister is not permitted to take risks. That is not the same as ‘meets international standards’.

Tony Legg

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