Catch Up with the Coal-ash Community Alliance-POSTPONED

It’s been 12 months since the Myuna Bay Sport & Rec Centre closure triggered by the potential collapse of Eraring’s Ash dam wall. The local Coal-ash Community Alliance is hosting a community awareness gathering at Wangi Workers on Wednesday 25/3/20, 6pm to update on the problems of the accumulating coal-ash in our community. POSTPONED

At the February Power & Pollution Summit, Bronya Lipski (Environmental Justice Australia) revealed that a comparison of licenses undertaken on operational and coal-ash remediation showed Australia is decades behind international standards and is exceptionally poorly regulated. This has resulted in short and long-term health impacts which are responsible for 300 death/year.

Lisa Evans from the USA-based Earth Justice shared the American experience where in 2008 an ash dam breach contaminated a 121ha river system, including high value waterfront properties, and killed more than 40 people who were involved in the clean-up relocating the toxic sludge (they were discouraged from wearing adequate PPE so as not to alarm people of the danger).

This event triggered a reform on the safe operation of coal-ash dumps in the USA which included:

• Groundwater monitoring for all contaminants at the boundary of the ash dam & public access to data
• Stringent limits on toxic pollutants in groundwater
• Closure of all unlined wet coal ash basins
• Groundwater restoration when contamination limits were exceeded
• Engineering controls and siting restrictions for ash-dams
• Structural stability standards
• Safe closure of all coal-ash dumps, with monitoring for 30 years including corrective measures for breaches
• Financial assurance for clean-up on closure

These measures are something our community can aspire to as the coal-ash dam clean-up associated with the closure of Eraring and Vales Point looms in the next decade. On the up-side the closures provide opportunities to create jobs in the remediation of the sites. The more thorough the clean-up the more jobs created, which has the potential to release 3000ha of waterfront land back to the community, remove the threat of ash-dam wall collapse, along with protecting the long-term health of the environment and community and generating new local industry in coal-ash reuse.

The CPPA made a submission to the inquiry into the costs for remediation of sites containing coal ash repositories and was been invited to give evidence at a hearing on 27/3/20, but it has been POSTPONED.