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http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/118711

Joe Fernandez
Dec 1, 09

The Sabah government has warned a coalition of environmentalists against continuing to publicise their anti-coal option campaign, insisting that they should "use the proper forum" to express dissatisfaction.

Since the weekend, Green Surf (Sabah Unite to Re-power the Future) and Sabah Environmental Protection Association (Sepa) have been selectively leaking the proposed terms of reference (TOR) for the Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) on the coal plant.

State minister for tourism, culture and environment Masidi Manjun (left) today issued a thinly-veiled threat, proffered as "friendly advice".

"Green Surf or Sepa should consider whether it is appropriate for them to air their differences (on the coal plant) in public and through the media, even before the TOR have been finalised," he said.

He conceded that "it is fair for the public to have access to the final TOR" but noted that these are still being drawn up at a series of meetings in Putrajaya and Kota Kinabalu.

"They (Green Surf) can forward their opinions and grouses during the next meeting (in Kota Kinabalu).

"Perhaps it would serve their interests more effectively if they refrain from making public, at this point of time, every one of their disagreements on the TOR. Instead, they should concentrate on arguing their points during the meetings."

Masidi stressed that the invitation to Green Surf to attend the meetings is proof that the state government values their input.

"To engage in the media on the TOR even before these are finalised would make it even more difficult for the various parties to engage in a professional exchange of opinions.

"All parties should attend the meetings with an open mind. They should be ready to accept with humility that their preconceived notions on certain aspects may not necessarily hold water."

Masidi clarified that the DEIA report would cover water quality, wetlands, ecology, land use, solid waste management, hydrology, drainage, flood analysis, landscape and visual aspects.

Other issues are the terrestrial ecology, flora, fauna, biodiversity, conservation, marine ecology, fisheries, coastal process, phytoplankton, coral reef and sea grass, climate, air quality, air quality dispersion modeling, environmental cost benefit analysis, public and workers’ health, environmental health risk assessment, quantitative risk and hazard assessment emergency response plan, coastal hydraulic and hydrodynamics, and thermal and chlorine dispersion.

He denied Green Surf’s allegation that the TOR would be filled with "predetermined and conclusive statements without scientific backing, facts and figures".

Shortcomings detected

Green Surf remained undeterred by Masidi’s "damage control" move, maintaining that "the TOR is sub-standard and totally unacceptable".

"The TOR appears to ignore the long-term impact of the proposed coal plant’s emission into the pristine Darvel Bay," said Sepa president Wong Tack.

He disclosed that Green Surf had three representatives – including himself – at a Department of Environment meeting in Putrajaya on Nov 24 and discovered that the TOR are being drawn up without external consultation.

"Given the various shortcomings in the TOR, these should have been rejected then and there in Putrajaya," stressed Wong.

"We are very concerned about the limited scope of study in the TOR. These should not have contained conclusive statements."

Wong also alleged that the TOR does not comply with the Sabah Development Corridor planning requirements or with other state guidelines, such as shoreline development, fisheries and tourism.

"The TOR also acknowledges that no study was carried out on the cumulative effects of the coal plant emissions over a five to 10-year period," he said.

"Even state government representatives have voiced concern on the adverse impact of the emissions on the Tun Sakaran Marine Park and the world-renowned diving haven of Pulau Sipadan over the long term."

Green Surf alleged that a key weakness of the TOR is that these were based on climate conditions in Tawau, and not the proposed site near Lahad Datu, 200km away.

Tawau was the second site selected after the initial location in Sandakan was abandoned on a wave of public protests.

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Kota Kinabalu, Aug 19, 2009: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) told the government to get down to the serious work of substantiating its high-sounding slogans to salvage whatever little credibility it has remaining.
“The ‘People First, Performance Now’ slogan is sounding less believable by the day as the people are subject to barrage of empty promises,” said Datuk Richard Yong, the secretary-general of Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP).
He cited as examples of empty promises the failure of the government in building a new general hospital for Kota Kinabalu City , addressing the perennial power supply disruptions throughout Sabah and the amusing delay in the completion of the intersection in front of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu.

“Such foot-dragging simply shows that the government ignores the cries of the people and makes a laughing stock of the promise of putting the people’s interest above everything, and promising of excellence.
Richard said the power supply problem has been plaguing Sabah since time immemorial. But instead of empathizing with the people, government leaders were quick to condemn any demonstration of anger.
“Chief Minister Datuk Musa made another round of promises that the power supply problem will be dealt with, as if it is within his purview to do so.

“Why should we believe that Musa can or will do anything when power supply is entirely the responsibility of Tenaga Nasional? And why should we believe that Tenaga would have a sense of urgency now when it never had any before?

He insisted that the government should back down on its plans to build a coal-fired power plant because of great risks to the environment. Instead, it should seriously explore other mode of power generation, and reverse its decision to allow Petronas to pipe natural gas from Sabah to Bintulu (in Sarawak) and use the gas to power new power stations in Sabah .

On the need for a new general hospital in the state capital, Richard described as ‘amazing’ how both state and government leaders are still dragging their feet since the Queen Elizabeth Hospital had half of its facilities and services disabled more than nine months ago.

“People don’t stop needing hospital services because one hospital is closed. Why can’t the government use its might like it did so frequently spending millions for so-called fast-track projects to put up a new hospital for the people of Sabah?
“If the government fails to do anything soon, it will go down Malaysian history as the state whose people survive the longest period without a general hospital.

“If they don’t do anything about the power supply, we will be elevated from being the state with the most atrocious power supply record to being a world record-holder, worse than some strife-torn African states and some banana republics in Latin America!

He said the continued delay in the completion of upgrading works on the intersection in front of the QEH is amusing because even the project owner, that is the Public Works Department, had expressed dismay over the snail’s pace with which the works have been progressing.
He alleged that thousands of motorists have been enduring the congestion and inconveniences caused by the half-finished intersection, which is a major gateway into and out of the KK City.
“Ordinarily a project delay can be tolerated by the people, but the slowness of this relatively simple project flies in the face of all the promises of People First and Performance Now.

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State DAP Vice Chairman Anthony Teo said the picture painted by SESB was that the electricity supply in the State would be "very erratic or more so in Sandakan."

"This will indeed be a major cause of concern and gloomy for Sabahans especially those living in the East Coast ÉI think this briefing is like (a) ‘I told you so’ (briefing)," said Teo, who is also the Sabah DAP Industrial Bureau chief.

The briefing he was referring to involved the SESB Public Relations Department, which spoke to several groups about the recent severe power interruption involving their corporate consumers in Sandakan, on Thursday.

"The briefing provided interesting views into the inner workings of SESB where it showed through the other interested players in the industries such as the State government, Federal departments, proponent of the Independent Power Providers (IPP) and politicians all wanting to protect their sphere of influence at the expense of Sabahans.

"This has put a huge constraint on SESB management and with outside interference, their hands are tied to their backs as SESB is unable to take the directions it wants to go and there is also much procrastination within SESB for fear of stepping on some powerful and well-connected toes."

In a statement here, Friday, Teo said it was with the understanding that Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) had the experience and financial resources to undertake proper development when TNB took over as the sole power provider in Sabah decades ago.

"But after 25 years in Sabah, it’s nothing but clearly a TNB failure because it allowed the powerfully connected corporate vultures to detect terms and turn Sabah into their milking cow under the pretext of privatisation," he said.

He also pointed out that it was alarming that 53 per cent of the power generation in Sabah depended on IPPs.

"If this trend continues, Sabahans will wake up to the fact that we are at the mercy of IPPs. I strongly urge SESB to reverse this trend to have a healthy ratio of 70 per cent (of the power generation) on SESB and 30 per cent IPP."

Meanwhile, Teo said, by their own admission, the West Coast (Kota Kinabalu) has a power generation capacity of 510.9MW but only utilised 474.4MW.

"This means there is a margin of only 7.7 per cent, which in this industry, is like living on the edge all the time.

"Therefore, if any one of the SESB or IPP generating facilities go down, it would invariably plunge Sabah into darkness. I do operate a generator set of 2,000v and my supplier is at pains to advise me to operate at only 70 per cent of the capacity."

Sandakan, he said, including Kinabatangan, only has a power generation capacity of 181.64MW but requires 229.6MW daily and because of its heavy dependence on the East-West Grid, the disruption to the West Coast power generation capacity will cause major disruptions to Sandakan, as is the case now.

In the case of IPP Powerton, the much delayed 190MW gas-fired project, which ran into some protracted legal problem on land matters, Teo pointed out the State Government should have stepped in under the Sabah Land Acquisition Ordinance to acquire the land and resovle this perennial power shortage problem.

Source: Daily Express Newspaper Online, Sabah Malaysia

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TEN-year old Yilong is already a statistic.

Born at the centre of China’s coal industry, the boy is mentally handicapped and is unable to speak. He is one of many such children in Shanxi province, where coal has brought riches to a few, jobs for many, and environmental pollution that experts say has led to a high number of babies born with birth defects.

Experts say coal mining and processing has given Shanxi a rate of birth defects six times higher than China’s national average, which is already high by global standards.

“They looked normal when they were born.

But they were still unable to talk or walk over a year later,” said farmer Hu Yongliang, 38, whose two older children are mentally handicapped. “They learnt to walk at the age of six or seven. They are very weak. Nobody knows what the problem is.”

Ill effects: A labourer resting at a cinder dump site in Changzhi, Shanxi province.Soaring birth defects there are said to be relatedto mining and burning of coal.

Hu’s 13-year-old daughter Yimei can only say one word, while her brother Yilong is unable to talk at all. The two spend most of the day playing in their small courtyard, where their mother Wang Caiying tends to their every need and tries to shield them from the neighbours’ prejudice.

“I never let them go out, I don’t want people to laugh at my children. They stay in this courtyard every day,” said Wang, who looks older than her 36 years. “I am especially worried about my son. He doesn’t know how to take care of himself. I have to do everything for him.”

The number of birth defects in Chinese infants soared nearly 40% from 2001 to 2006, China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission said in a 2007 report. The rate of babies born with birth defects rose from 104.9 per 10,000 births in 2001, to 145.5 in 2006, affecting nearly one in 10 families, the report said.

Infants with birth defects accounted for about 4% to 6% of total births every year, or 800,000 to 1.2 million babies, higher than World Health Organisation estimates that about 3% to 5% of children worldwide are born with birth defects.

“The fact that the rate of birth defects in Shanxi province is higher is related to environmental pollution caused by the high level of energy production and burning of coal,” said Pan Xiaochuan, a professor from Peking University’s occupational and environmental health department. Pan has been doing research into the health effects of pollution in Shanxi for several years.

Neural tube defects were the most common form of defect found in babies in Shanxi, Pan said, though congenital heart disease, additional fingers and toes, and cleft palettes were also common.

Cleaning up

China, home to some of the world’s most polluted cities, has pledged to cut emissions and clean up its environment, laid waste by decades of breakneck development. But lax local enforcement and an insatiable demand for energy to feed its booming economy undermine environmental policy goals.

China’s ministry of health said recently it would give folic acid supplements to 12 million rural women to try to reduce the rate of defects, especially the neurological defects that are most common and easily prevented with such supplements.

Defects often strike in the poorest families, who can barely afford medical fees let alone care for their children once they reach adulthood.

The meagre 10,000 yuan (RM5,760) a year Hu earns transporting goods leaves almost nothing to pay for medical expenses for his two children. The family’s hopes are now pinned on their youngest, a six-month old boy named Yiwu, whose blood tests show he was spared his siblings’ afflictions. His parents want Yiwu to be a doctor when he grows up.

Like many other villages in south-west Shanxi, Gaojiagou is surrounded by at least a dozen mines that spew out millions of tonnes of coal every year to feed China’s power plants and steel mills.

Many Gaojiagou villagers suffer from coughs or respiratory illnesses caused by the dust that clouds the air. Their water source has also been polluted by mining, they say.

“Every family used to get drinking water from the well in the courtyard,” Hao said as water the colour of weak tea rushed out of a hose into a metal washbasin. “But now the water in the well is so polluted by the coal mines and washeries around our village, we cannot drink it any more.” – Reuters

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2009/6/30/lifefocus/20090630072502&sec=lifefocus

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Also, the Coal Fired Power Plant can be replaced with other alternatives eg: Solar and Wind Energy instead of coal that can destroy the nature of Sandakan!

Click MORE to continue reading

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We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors;
we borrow it from our children."

Chief Seattle – A great leader of the Native American Suquamish Tribe

Brothers & Sisters,

I was saddened to read the latest news on Datuk Raymond Tan’s meeting with DPM Najib & Tenaga Chairman Leo Moggie (http://dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=61628) and the verbal diarohea of how the government is duty-bound to provide electricity to the people. They are diverting from the essentials – They were talking about alternative and ‘best’ sites instead of talking about alternative or best source of power.

I am of the opinion that some people have brains that has ceased to function after entering the kingdom called POLITICS. They talk and talk but never listen.

Whats happening is a result of electing arrogant and selfish politicians who are corrupted to the core. And there are some slaving servants who are are so hard-up wanting to earn their bread and butter that they will swear upon their mother’s grave that the government is right – sometimes even before they have heard all of it.

Sandakanians -  STAY UNITED! Your power lies in YOUR VOTE! Use it wisely the next time around.

Cheers,
SM Muthu

Take time to reflect on these meaningful quotes:

Remember in a democracy –

The people shouldn’t be afraid of their government, The government should be afraid of its people.

When a government starts telling the people whats right and wrong, the people are in great danger.

My observation and readings of history tells me that most bad governments are the result of too much power.

A government, for protecting business only, is but a carcass, and soon falls by its own corruption and decay.
Amos Bronson Alcott 1799-1888, American Educator, Social Reformer

In every State, the government is nothing but a permanent conspiracy on the part of the minority against the majority, which it enslaves and fleeces. Michael Bakunin

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