Expert claims incinerator will cause baby deaths (From The Argus)

Expert claims incinerator will cause baby deaths

7:13am Thursday 24th May 2007

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A new waste incinerator could create a "fallout zone" that would shorten people's lives by up to 12 years, a leading expert has claimed.

Retired GP Dr Dick van Steenis said cancer rates are likely to soar, babies' lives will be put at risk and thousands living in a 15-mile radius of Newhaven could suffer health problems if the plant is built.

He believes the incinerator could cause a 480 per cent rise in cancer cases within 20 years - across a danger zone including Brighton and Hove, Lewes, Eastbourne, Polegate and Hailsham.

Veolia, the firm behind the incinerator, said his comments were at odds with the Health Protection Agency's conclusion that "modern well-managed waste incinerators will only make a very small contribution to background levels of air pollution".

Dr van Steenis, who has advised four parliamentary inquiries on pollution and the environment, said tens of thousands of people could suffer if the 14,000sqm site opens in 2010 as planned. He said the most damaging emissions would not be filtered out by the incinerator.

And he claimed living within 15 miles of the incinerator could lead to "sky high" rates of infant mortality, asthma and autism.

Dr van Steenis said: "The peak of health risk will be located within the first 7.5 miles so Lewes is going to take the brunt of it. Birth defects, infant deaths, asthma, autism - cases of which are five times higher in these polluted areas - heart attacks, all will rise as a result.

"Even the IQs of the children could be affected - all because of the incinerator."

East Sussex County Council chiefs approved the plans earlier this year. The Government decided not to call in the application despite a long-running campaign with nearly 15,000 written objections.

Dr van Steenis has given evidence in a number of public inquiries into incinerators and waste sites. He has campaigned for more stringent standards to apply to incinerators for 12 years after researching the health of families living around 15 different plants.

He said: "The effects were all the same - health suffers. It's not just the elderly who are dying but people in their 50s too. They have a huge impact on health."

In eastern Enfield, downwind of Britain's largest incinerator in Edmonton, London, the death rate for babies up to a year old is between 10 and 12 per thousand - more than twice the national average.

Anti-incinerator campaigner Gary Alderson said: "They are putting our lives and our children's lives at risk. Incineration is not the way forward and there needs to be an immediate rethink."

Veolia last night maintained that the Newhaven plant would be safe and said it could not find a report that supported the claims of Dr van Steenis. A spokesman said Veolia could assure people that the proposed energy recovery facility in Newhaven was safe.

He said: "The Environment Agency has granted the facility a pollution prevention and control permit and has stated that this facility does not cause a threat to the environment or human health'."

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