No more coal for Wairau

Wairau Hospital will have its coal burners replaced as part of a $12 billion Government infrastructure package to reduce carbon emissions.

Health Minister David Clark announced on Tuesday that Nelson Marlborough Health would receive $5 million to future-proof Wairau Hospital by replacing ‘‘dirty coal-burning boilers with modern, green alternatives’’.

The three coal-fired boilers at Wairau Hospital would be replaced with high-efficiency and sustainable alternatives that would reduce carbon emissions and operating costs.

Nelson Marlborough Health chief executive Peter Bramley welcomed the funding announcement and said the boilers needed to be replaced with ‘‘some urgency’’.

He was unsure of the timeframe within which the boilers would be replaced or exactly what fuel source or system would be best, but he could assure the community it would not be coal-based.

Nelson Hospital uses a combination of coal and landfill gas for heating and electricity while Wairau Hospital uses coal exclusively. Bramley said the amount of coal used each year was dependent on weather conditions.

For the last eight years, the average coal burnt per year was 1374 tonnes for Nelson and 1000 tonnes for Wairau.

Bramley said the health board had already made progress in reducing its carbon consumption. In 2019, the amount of steam produced from the coal-fed boiler at Nelson was reduced to 25 per cent. The rest was produced from the methane-fed boiler using landfill gas.

The Government has proposed a ban on new coal-fired boilers for most uses and a phase-out of existing boilers by 2030.

In November, Nelson GP Dr Ngaire Warner and city councillor Matt Lawrey made a submission to the health board, asking it to end its use of coal at Nelson Hospital for energy and heating.

Warner said that, as a doctor, she was concerned about the detrimental health effects of fossil fuels on the community, particularly in the Nelson South airshed. The heavy metals released from burning coal were linked to health issues such as bronchitis, asthma, lung cancer, neurological diseases and heart disease.

‘‘We know it’s bad, we need to stop doing it.’’

Lawrey asked board members to ‘‘avoid the temptation’’ to put off the issue until Nelson Hospital was rebuilt, as that could be a decade away. But on Tuesday, Bramley said the health board had committed to replacing the boilers at Nelson Hospital as part of its eventual redevelopment.

A three-month trial to use wood pellets instead of coal in the Nelson boilers planned for summer had been postponed due to ‘‘engineering considerations’’.