Legal challenge to Environment Agency’s decision to grant a permit for one of Europe’s biggest waste incinerators
A campaign group, representing seven villages in Essex, has issued a legal challenge against the Environment Agency over concerns that residents will be exposed to the potentially hazardous effects of the development of one of Europe’s biggest waste incinerators.
Represented by Leigh Day solicitors, No Essex Incinerator Limited (also known as Parishes Against Incinerator: PAIN) has applied for permission to judicially review the Environment Agency’s decision to grant the developer of the incinerator, Gent Fairhead and Co Limited, permission to vary the environmental permit it has had since 2017.
It means that Gent Fairhead can build a shorter 35-metre stack – used to disperse the pollutions produced by the waste plant to reduce their adverse effects on air quality – at the integrated waste management facility on Rivenhall Airfield, Essex, which was given planning permission in 2010.
Four years ago, it was accepted by the Environment Agency that a 35-metre stack would not meet the EU’s best practice guidance for building waste incinerators (known as Best Available Techniques). However, the Environment Agency has now granted a licence for the shorter stack, which means the company can now go ahead with the project.
There are fears that the uniquely low height of the stack will severely impact the air quality on homes in the surrounding area. Of particular concern is the potential effects on the hundreds of children who attend primary schools in the local area.
PAIN also has serious concerns about the effects the development would have on the environment if the permit goes unchallenged. PAIN says that the emissions from the site would be equivalent to 120,000 cars each travelling 8,000 miles a year around Braintree in Essex. It believes there is no other waste management facility with a stack at such a low height in the whole of the UK. Without a sufficiently high stack to limit the harmful effects caused by the waste plant, PAIN believe the effects on the environment could be catastrophic.
The plant would include an anaerobic digester which could process 75 tonnes of non-hazardous waste a day, an incineration plant with the capacity to process more than three tonnes an hour, and a mechanical biological treatment facility.
The campaigners represent residents from the parishes of Coggeshall, Feering, Silver End, Stisted, Rivenhall, Kelvedon and Witham.
They make their case for judicial review on the following grounds:
· Permitting the 35m stack height amounted to a breach of the Industrial Emissions Directive
· Even if a 35m stack was capable of being a Best Available Technique, the Environment Agency failed to take into account the need to reduce to a minimum the overall impact of the emissions on the environment
· The Decision was made in a manner contrary to guidance produced by the Environment Agency without good reason.
Nick Unsworth, PAIN campaigner, said: “This is the last roll of the dice for us and, as there is no Ombudsman or arbitration mechanism, somebody must ask why this has been allowed given the Environment Agency’s original emphatic refusal of a 35m stack.
It seems totally contrary to the climate change crisis we face, what we now know about the impacts of air quality on human health, education, schools, and the impact of CO2 on our environment (the incinerator will generate 500,000 tons per year) never mind the various agreements the UK government has signed up to.
In addition there are lessons within the COVID 19 pandemic we must heed that showing us what actually happens when we reduce emissions and the subsequent improvement in air quality.”
Leigh Day solicitor John Crowley said: “Our client believes that the building of a 35-metre stack at what will be one of the biggest waste incinerators in Europe will have a massively negative effect on the lives of residents in the surrounding villages.
In giving permission to vary the terms of Gent Fairhead’s existing licence, and going against its previous decision on the subject, my client believes the Environment Agency has not only failed to follow the relevant EU legislation but also its own guidance.”
ENDS
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35 metres for an incinerator chimney stack certainly seems very low, All sorts of toxic nasties will be burnt in an incinerator. No doubt the developer will be installing flue gas scrubbing and clean up facilities but these sometimes fail. When nasty substances are burnt particularly if there is chlorine in the substances as there would be if ,for example, PVC is burnt, is that as the flue gases cool other toxic substances reform in the flue gases and can produce very toxic dioxins for example.which would then be emitted to the atmosphere. It is essential the developer demonstrates through flue gas dispersion modelling of various flue gas emission scenarios that dioxins will never reach a dangerous level in the surrounding housing and environment and that he guarantees this. A 35 meter stack would-hardy seem sufficient for that guarantee.
The EA is a disgrace.
In 1999 / 2000 local residents in Newcastle living close to Byker Incinerator discovered that the Council had been given the wonderful opportunity by the waste incinerator company to use, free of charge, their mixed top ash (highly toxic) with their bottom ash (less toxic) as a path material substitute. This ash was spread on footpaths, bridal ways, horse riding training rings etc. Residents managed to get the mixture analysed and it turned out that the ash contained dioxin and a whole host of dangerous substances.
Dioxin is one of the most harmful substances to man and the environment – its carcinogenic, mutagenic etc etc. It was used in the Agent Orange de-foilage sprays in Vietnam. Byker’s MIXED ash was at the highest end of the dioxin levels found in Vietnam.
This incident was described by an environmental expert as one of the worst contamination incident in the world because the ash had been spread on footpaths in allotments throughout Newcastle. Chickens had pecked at it (and the eggs and some of the chickens were subsequently eaten by allotment holders), children played in it, allotment holders mixed this ash in with soil as a soil improver and it naturally washed into the soil.
All the ash had to be cleared up as best the Council could. Staff clearing the site wore complete decontamination suits and masks and goggles.
During the investigation a committee was set up comprising of the EA, The Council, and other representatives of those involved in this incident(!) as well as two residents who had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
The investigation unearthed the complete uselessness of the EA. They had not spotted that – for 7 years – the incinerator company had sent in the same, identically filled in forms for the pollution levels of various toxins supposedly being emitted by the incinerator. There were huge inadequacies like that. This incinerator which residents were repeatedly assured was ‘one of the most tightly regulated industries’ in the UK was just breaching H&S, environmental and waste regulations left, right and centre.
Testing of the area surrounding the incinerator disclosed dioxin hotspots all around the local residential estate both upwind but mainly down wind. The levels were way above the supposed safe levels.
Ultimately, the EA simply charged the Council with not completing the correct forms and the Council was fined a measly £35,000 for this oversight. The EA was never reprimanded.
A waste incinerator is an environmental disaster. Lowering that chimney will be an even greater threat.
Good luck with the judicial review!
I’ve just checked.
The chimney at Byker Incinerator was 130m high – and incredible 95m taller than this proposed chimney.
The EA is an utter disgrace.