Anti-Nuke Rally and the Real Deal
Tuesday 13 July 2010 Plans are in the pipeline to build a nuclear power plant in the Thyspunt area, between J-Bay and Cape St Francis. While most people have the gut reaction against the idea of a nuclear power plant being built in this area, feelings are not always enough. Below you will find the executive summary on the Nuclear situation from the Thyspunt Alliance group. This was issued in response to an apparently flawed environmental impact report. Once you have read it, you'll be armed to act. Stand up against the powers that be to ensure a potentially less polluted and healthier environment for one of South Africa’s best waves (and most beautiful places), join the SAVE THYSPUNT NUCLEAR RALLY this Saturday at 9:30am in Jeffrey's Bay. The rally will start in front of the Country Feeling Surfshop and march to the municipality. R20 gets you a ticket in a raffle for a Firewire surfboard, and the organisers ask that you wear black or yellow. But before you go charging off, find out what's what's going on. Get educated, and make a difference.
Following are highlights that come out of the Executive Summary of the Response to the Draft Environmental Impact Report – Nuclear 1.
This response and executive summary were prepared by members of the Thyspunt Alliance group. Information used was based on available information from the Draft EIA Report, Stakeholders’ meetings with the consultants and some of their experts, as well as experts consulted on a voluntary basis.
1) The site selection is seriously flawed.
2) The Draft EIA Report is not comprehensive, includes factual errors and appears to be biased to a pre-determination to favour the Thyspunt site. The report is not impartial.
3) Access to information was at times denied to members of the Thyspunt Alliance. Minutes of stakeholders meetings were furnished late and were skewed in favour of the consultants and Eskom’s apparent pre-determination towards the Thyspunt site.
4) The effect of transmission lines were not included in the Draft EIAR.
5) Specific technology was not described.
6) The term “related infrastructure” was used to cover a variety of items that should have had in depth studies applied. Eg The R330 road and the extension thereof is to become the major access road for heavy vehicles during the construction phase. No mention is made regarding the effect of this road on the lifestyle of residents of Sea Vista, who will be badly affected. No mention is made of the negative effect on tourism or the effects on a large wetland system that the road extension passes through. Property values in the Cape St Francis and St Francis Bay areas will plummet, yet this factor is ignored in the Draft EIAR.
7) Some specialist reports are so badly drawn up as to even getting predominant wind directions wrong as well as distances from the NPS site.
8) Biophysical: Eskom uses a “blackmail” attitude in that it argues that the NPS will be good for nature conservation, quoting the alternative as full scale development. The comparison should clearly be between the NPS and making the site a Reserve/Heritage site, which it is very much worthy of. This message is put across in specialist reports dealing with Geo-Hydrology, Terrestial Fauna, Flora, Wetlands etc. For the sake of brevity we did not include our comments on these specialist reports in this synopsis of a summary.
9) Dune Dynamics: This is a soft landscape prone to complex dynamics of wind, sand and underground water. It is a risky environment in which to place a potentially lethal facility such as a NPS.
10) Marine: The report does not address the effects of pumping 6,37 million cu meters of sand into the ocean during construction, nor does it address adequately other factors such as pumping large volumes of warm, chlorinated water into the sea during the operational phase. The above factors will (with a very high probability factor) result in squid not breeding in the area between Cape St Francis and Oyster Bay. This area currently accounts for 33-38% of all squid catches in South Africa, and would be lost to squid fishing.
11) Heritage/Archaeology: The site is of major importance in terms of Archaeology and Southern African heritage (Gamtkwa/Khoi/San), and should be declared a Natural Heritage Site.
12) Social Impact: Huge: During construction some 8000 workers (plus other job seekers) and their families will move into the Kouga area. Upon completion of the NPS some 7000 of these workers will be unemployed. Add to this the unemployment resulting from the partial or complete collapse of the squid industry (see 13 below), and we may well have 8000 or more unemployed people and their families living in the Kouga Municipal Area. (30.000 people without a breadwinner?) These numbers are so high for this area as to be catastrophic.
13) Economic Impact: It is highly probable that the squid industry will lose one third of its most productive fishing area, with the resultant loss of some R160 million per year in revenue (R3,2 billion over 20 years). 1000 to 1300 jobs (out of 4000 employed in the industry) would be lost. In this case it is highly probable that due to larger distances travelled, larger boats would become necessary. These would be unable to operate out of Port St Francis due to physical constraints (harbour mouth depth etc). Squid boat operators would be forced to re-locate to Port Elizabeth or other deeper harbours. This in turn would lead to a complete collapse of the Kouga squid industry. The Port St Francis harbour may then become economically un-viable. The squid industry has a gross income of some R500million per year and employs some 4000 persons. Losing the squid industry would be a huge loss to the Kouga Municipal area.
14) Agricultural: The Draft EIA Report refers to agricultural production growth of 10 to 15% due to the NPS. This is not true…..a loss is much more likely. Furthermore there will be substantial losses in production resulting from the transmission lines and corridors associated.
The Thyspunt Alliance has purposely not entered into the Nuclear vs Non-Nuclear power debate. We have limited our comments to the Draft EIA Report and to the general effect of constructing a large Nuclear Power Station at Thyspunt.
Thyspunt is clearly NOT a suitable site for Nuclear 1. The negative effects of placing an NPS on this site far outweigh any positive impact.