Within its 20 year or so lifetime, the new plant to be installed at Delimara Power Station by the Danish company BWSC and the local contractor Zaren Vassallo, will produce 226,300 tonnes of toxic waste and 7,300 tonnes of sludge oil. This is because the new plant chosen by government and Enemalta is a diesel engine combined cycle (DECC) that works on heavy fuel oil. To control the pollution that it lets out, emission abatement equipment has to be installed, chemical agents used, and these will produce 31 tonnes of toxic waste a day. The February 2009 adjudication report, prepared by the board that chose the bidder concluded that BWSC “indicated that a continuous supply of a combined total of around 60 tonnes of reagents and lubricating oil per day is required. In addition… 31 tonnes per day of hazardous waste will be generated by the exhaust emission abatement equipment. The waste is considered hazardous due to the presence of heavy metals originating from the fuel. This waste most probably will have to be exported, and all this would require a continuously operating logistics system to handle these materials.”
A lot of medical research shows that pollution produced by power stations working on heavy fuel oil cause cancer and birth defects, damage the central nervous system, the liver and kidney are harmful to infants and young children. Enemalta tells us that we should be happy that so far the Marsa Power Station used to emit these pollutants “into the open air through its chimneys but now this toxic waste will be collected and sent to landfills or to be recycled in Europe. In Italy there is already a plant that recycles material like this. The cost to do this has already been included in the financial analysis.” The Technical Evaluation Report of Enemalta admits that “the amount of waste that will be generated (by the new plant at Delimara) is however of a much higher quantity” than that generated by the existing old plant.
The Marsa Power Station is generating 240 tonnes of waste per year and is costing it nearly half a million euro to deal with it. The Delimara BWSC plant will produce 11,315 tonnes of toxic waste per year. At what cost?
How can Enemalta and government know how much getting rid of this toxic waste is going to cost us if they do not know where it is going to end up and what use is going to be made of it? How can Enemalta know the cost when we will only know how much toxic waste is going to be generated after the plant starts operating? In fact the Technical Evaluation Report of Enemalta also says it is too early to say how much toxic waste is going to be generated by the BWSC plant as the “amount of reagents required… and wastes generated are at present only indicative and will only be guaranteed after a tune-up period of emission abatement systems after power block-start-up and commissioning.”
All we know is that for the handling of chemicals to control the pollution and to dispose of the toxic waste “BWSC are suggesting that for the 60 days storage capacity requested by Enemalta, approximately 125 twenty feet specialised containers are required to be procured by Enemalta for this purpose. A number of these containers shall be on site and the remainder shall be in transit between Delimara Power Station and the reagent producer.”
How will all these containers affect Marsaxlokk and the surrounding areas? Will they be carried on land? Will they arrive and depart the Delimara site by sea on barges and what happens when it is stormy?
BWSC told Enemalta that Solvay, a possible supplier of one of the chemicals required to control the pollution,“indicated that there could be a possibility that the waste produced may be re-sent to them for recycling although at present, the company does not have the facilities to cater for the amounts produced by this proposed plant.”
It is clear from this that we do not yet know where the thousands of tonnes of toxic waste produced by the BWSC are going to end up.
In its Technical Evaluation Report Enemalta admits that “Due to the emission abatement equipment installed,” the BWSC plant requires “continuous handling of reagents and waste. The amounts involved require logistics for procurement, handling and disposal of these, which are beyond the scope of this contract. The combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant does not require such reagents, and produces minimal amounts of waste.” If the cost of getting rid of so many thousands of tonnes of toxic waste is “beyond the scope of this contract”, why is Enemalta saying that its expense has been included in the financial analysis that led it and government to choose the BWSC plant that generates so much toxic waste and discard a CCGT plant that produces minimal amount of waste?
Three years ago the PN government and Enemalta, through official declarations and the National Generation Plan for Electricity 2006 – 2015 said that no plants like that of the BWSC they have now chosen will be installed anymore at Delimara and that instead they would choose the CCGT plant as it is cheaper and better for our health and our environment. Government has yet to explain and justify this total U-turn in its policy.
Government’s and Enemalta’s track record in dealing with the pollutants produced by local power stations is abysmal. How can government and Enemalta be trusted in guaranteeing that the new BWSC plant fired by heavy fuel oil will not pollute and damage our health and environment? How can we believe them when they reassure us that they already know how to dispose of thousands of tonnes of toxic waste?
The precipitators at the Marsa Power Station often do not work and Enemalta and MEPA allow all the resulting pollution to harm our health and environment. How are they going to become health and environment conscious once the BWSC plant starts functioning with equipment that is a prototype and has yet to be tried and tested to find out whether it will control the pollution coming out of the plant operating on heavy fuel oil?
For 10 years government has promised the residents of Fgura and Zabbar that it is taking steps to investigate the origin of the black dust plaguing these localities. Government still does not know where the black dust is coming from, let alone taking effective steps to stop it. Over the years Enemalta has accumulated tonnes of toxic waste and will have to spend millions of euros to get rid of it but it still has not found the required amount of money and the countries ready to take it. How can we believe government and Enemalta that now, all of a sudden, they have a viable plan to get rid of the thousands of tonnes of toxic waste produced by the BWSC plant they have chosen for Delimara?
Evarist Bartolo is a Labour MP and spokesperson for education
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The February 2009 adjudication report, prepared by the board that chose the bidder concluded that BWSC “indicated that a continuous supply of a combined total of around 60 tonnes of reagents and lubricating oil per day is required. In addition… 31 tonnes per day of hazardous waste will be generated by the exhaust emission abatement equipment. The waste is considered hazardous due to the presence of heavy metals originating from the fuel. This waste most probably will have to be exported, and all this would require a continuously operating logistics system to handle these materials.”
