Gov’t has moral obligation to reject coal plant

THE EDITOR, Sir:

OUR NATION is in danger. The 1,000MW coal-fired plant to be built by the Chinese company Jiuquan Iron & Steel at Nain, St Elizabeth, has too many negatives associated with it and should not be presented to the Jamaican people as a fait accompli.

The Government says it will create 3,000 jobs, include bauxite mines, an alumina refinery, a local electricity network and more, but the danger is the fuel to be used. It will be powered by coal!

Let us not forget that in Europe, when coal was used to power industry, coal caused a dense fog of soot and noxious waste gases called smog, which was the origin of lung diseases that killed hundreds of thousands and made maintaining cleanliness in communities hard.

History shows that killer fogs in London caused over 1,150 deaths in three days from severe air pollution. Human hair samples from that time show antimony and mercury at toxic levels and rivers were also polluted. Acid rain also first occurred at that time as a result of emissions from coal-powered plants. Why would we want to go backwards? The world is moving away from coal. Even if improved, more modern methods are used, coal is NOT the way for Jamaica to go!

The proposed plant is huge. The results will be damaging not only for the community of small farmers in Nain, but for the nation. It will almost double our greenhouse gas emissions and harm our precious environment on which we depend for tourism. It will affect our health, the very air we breathe, and, additionally, the storage and management of toxic coal ash will be a permanent problem.

OUR COMMITMENT