Power Station Health Impact Assessment Community Forum - 16 July 2008
On June 17 2008, ACT Minister for Health, Katy Gallagher MLA announced an independent Steering group would oversee the preparation of a Health Impact Assessment for the proposed Computer Data Centre and Gas Fired Power Station at Tuggeranong, and guide the Health Impact Assessment Process.
The Health Impact Assessment will examine issues including the potential for emissions from the proposed development to affect human health and other positive and negative impacts on health.
The first community forum allowed the public to meet with the Steering Group and consultants working on the assessment and provided information about how the assessment works.
Health Impact Assessment Steering Group (HIASG) members:
- Professor Anthony Capon from the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, ANU (chairperson);
- Professor Helen Keleher from the Department of Health Science at Monash University;
- Dr Charles Guest, ACT Chief Health Officer; and
- Ms Anne Cahill Lambert as a community representative.
The HIA process
Golder Associates were engaged to conduct the HIA generally in accordance with the Health Impacts Assessment Guidelines 2001 (known as the enHealth guidelines), and the Health Impact Assessment: A practical Guide 2007 (NSW Health and UNSW).
Key aspects of the proposed HIA process are:
- Scoping – set out the HIA, including steering committee and project plan
- Identification – develop community profile and collect information
- Assessment – assess and prioritise information
- Decision-making and recommendations – develop action-oriented recommendations and plan for implementation
- Evaluation and follow-up – evaluate the HIA process and outcomes
Issues of interest in the HIA for this project include:
- Air emissions
- Noise
- Odour
- Electromagnetic fields
- Gas leakage
- Public safety (traffic, hazardous materials, security of site)
- Visual amenity
- Property value
- Access to recreational facilities
- Greenhouse gas emissions
As well as the possible health issues building a gas fired power station makes little sense.
In modern wholesale power markets the power stations best able to sell their power are those whose variable cost is lowest. What this means is that in the long term to get a good return on your money it is better to build power stations with low variable costs of energy production. In the USA there has been a big fall off in the building of gas fired power stations because they have low capital costs and high running costs (gas is expensive). It is economic vandalism for the ACT to build a gas fired power in this day and age. The price of gas is going to go even higher than it is today - perhaps even 4 times its cost - because gas can be used for transport. The ACT should ONLY consider building the lowest variable cost power sources for its future energy. Today that is geothermal and solar thermal both of which produce power at lower variable cost than any current or future fossil burning plant. If the ACT government continues down the path to build a gas fired power station then in five years time it will have to live with the consequences of a power plant that rarely operates but takes up valuable land.