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Incinerator burns hole in public purse
9:39am Tuesday 11th December 2007
Almost £2 million of taxpayers' money has been spent on legal fees for a controversial incinerator.
East Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove City Council have spent the money on legal costs over plans to build an incinerator at Newhaven.
The figure was revealed by Lewes MP Norman Baker, who requested information on the costs from the councils for each year since 1999.
The county council said the total cost of the legal advice from its solicitors had been £1,902,876.02.
Two thirds was met by the county council with Brighton and Hove paying the remainder.
But the total cost of the legal fees is set to rise now that a legal challenge to the plans has been successful.
Newhaven resident Nicola Day challenged the Environment Agency over its grant of a pollution prevention control permit to waste firm Veolia, saying officers did not give proper consideration to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
A new consultation will now have to be undertaken by the agency in the new year, costing the tax payer thousands more pounds.
Mr Baker, who revealed in September that the cost of the incinerator had already more than doubled from £71.7 million to £145.7 million since it was first approved, said: "I find it ridiculous that East Sussex and Brighton and Hove councils have been able to spend nearly two million pounds worth of taxpayers' money on legal advice for an incinerator nobody wants.
"The costs of the proposed incinerator in Newhaven has already been shown to be spiralling out of control, and today's news does not help the situation.
"It was my understanding that the incinerator was supposed to burn waste. To me it looks like the only thing it is good at burning is taxpayers' money."
The figures show that in 1999 to 2000, the councils spent £114,988.21 on legal fees.
The next year's cost was £121,531.47, then £331,072.93 for 2001 to 2002, £448,010.90 for 2002 to 2003.
In 2003 to 2004, it rocketed to a whopping £610,163.52, followed by £57,550.06 in 2004 to 2005, £46,571.15 for 2005 to 2006, £71,614.04 for 2006 to 2007 and finally £101,373.74 for this year so far.
Plans for the incinerator were approved by the county council earlier this year and it is expected to be operational by 2010.
It will process 210,000 tonnes of refuse annually.
A spokesman for East Sussex County Council said: "These legal fees actually represent good value for money. Most were incurred in the negotiating of a £1 billion waste disposal contract and they represent a tiny fraction of this investment.
"To set these costs in context, someone buying a house could expect to pay a far greater proportion of their total investment to lawyers.
"It is also important to note that because it is a PFI contract, nearly £50 million of the contract costs will be met by central Government funding, costing local council taxpayers nothing."
A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said he had seen the county council's statement and had nothing to add.
Your Say YourArgus
ac, B&H says...
1:57pm Tue 11 Dec 07
Rick, Brighton says...
2:18pm Tue 11 Dec 07
I'd far rather this than a landfill site. Stick it in my back yard if you like.
ac, b&h says...
2:59pm Tue 11 Dec 07
Denying it, it's absurd, there are plenty of evidences.
Fight fire, with petrol says...
3:14pm Tue 11 Dec 07
Scorpion, Newhaven says...
3:32pm Tue 11 Dec 07
Don't fall into the ESCC, BHCC & Veolia trap of "we're the authority - we must be right". The truth is out there.
ac, b&h says...
4:17pm Tue 11 Dec 07
Fight fire, with petrol says...
5:10pm Tue 11 Dec 07
Rick, Brighton says...
5:39pm Tue 11 Dec 07
Comparing Agent Orange to incinerators (that scrub the dioxins out of the emissions anyway) is like comparing the Hiroshima bomb to the isotope in your smoke alarm. A complete straw man.
There is no evidence that people living near any incinerators are in dangers. If there is some evidence, show me the peer-reviewed paper from a respected journal.
ac, b&h says...
6:02pm Tue 11 Dec 07
get you facts right!
Rick, Brighton says...
1:42pm Wed 12 Dec 07
http://www.bma.org.u
k/ap.nsf/Content/Ref
useManagement
The relevant studies show the risks from various waste management practised are minimal.
I suspect the campaigners would refuse a recycling centre with no emissions too, and that the so-called health concerns are nothing more than NIMBYism.
ac, b&h says...
4:33pm Wed 12 Dec 07
Rick, Brighton says...
4:55pm Wed 12 Dec 07
ac, b&h says...
6:13pm Wed 12 Dec 07
Rob Whittle, Norwich says...
5:19am Thu 13 Dec 07
Just correct you on three points.
Science: Dioxins are the most carinogenic substance known to man. Sources: WHO report, USEPA, HPA.
Nimbyism: Most people are quite willing to accept a better quality residual waste facility near to them than an incinerator. This might be an MBT/AD facility like we have 1km away from us in Norwich, and we also have accepted 2 Material Recovery Facilities and 1 Recycling Centre nearby. So local people just want something better than an incinerator, rather than spin and EfW/CHP euphemisms.
Research. US EPA, Pope and World renowned Six Cities Studies findings (and follow up in the NEMJ, highest US medical journal) PM2.5 emissions cause premature deaths and several health problems. Fact. The study found scientifically and statistically their was NO lower safe level for PM2.5 levels. Incinerators are PM2.5 producers as the filters only largely capture PM10 size particles. This is in the Veolia IPPC permit. 5micro grammes per cu metre of PM2.5 cause 700 premature deaths / 100,000 population. The Newhaven incinerator is allowed to operate at 10 micro grammes per cu m, ie EU Waste Incinerator Direcyive Levels. Pope and Docherty.
The UK and EU governments know all about the ill affects of PM2.5s, ultrafine and nano particles, or DPM from Diesel Traffic; but choose to keep it under wraps with political Directives such as WID. There is a Air Emissions Directive in the pipeline but countries are resisting the PM2.5 levels.
In London there are about 20 Environmental Agency air monitors, some recording PM10 level, only one at Marylebone measuring at the PM2.5 level. It also measures Benzene which causes leukaemia. PM2.5 levels from HGV traffic, trains and 10 incinerators is horrendous, especially on high pressure/ calm/ temperature inverted days.
So thanks for the opinion, which is only such.
Frank, London says...
9:41am Thu 13 Dec 07
Rick, Brighton says...
10:33am Thu 13 Dec 07
There are dioxins in the air you're breathing right now. And there is no recorded case of cancer where the cause was clearly exposure to dioxins.
You're absolutely right about the air pollution and levels in London. This is down to vehicle emissions which are a **** sight more dangerous than anything this incinerator will release.
If the anti-incinerator campaigners really wanted to protect health, they'd campaign against that.
Michael Ryan, Shrewsbury says...
12:32pm Thu 13 Dec 07
If traffic pollution was the main cause of ill-health in London, the rates would be highest where traffic movements are greatest and that isn't what's been happening with the infant mortality rates.
Take a look at:
http://www.ukhr.org/
incineration/londonb
oroughs2006.htm
and ponder on the fact that the 101 electoral wards in London with infant mortality rates in 2003-6 below 2.0 per 1,000 live births are free from PM2.5 emissions from incinerators and the forty-two wards with
infant mortality rates above 9.0 per 1,000 live births are not.
The average infant mortality rate in the low wards is 1.0 per 1,000 live births while the average infant mortality rate in the high wards is 11.1 per 1,000 live births.
An eleven-fold differential suggests that the findings are not chance events.
Kind regards,
Michael Ryan,
Shrewsbury
Rick, Brighton says...
12:37pm Thu 13 Dec 07
Correlation does not imply cause.
Scorpion, Newhaven says...
1:20pm Thu 13 Dec 07
It is also true that most of the dioxins produced in the act of incineartion are destruyed or removed by scrubbers. What isnt removed is the stuff that reforms in the stack has the hoit gasses cool. Look at Veolia's own planning application of you want to see what their predicted levels of dioxins and other pollutants really are.
The inescapable fact is that 210,000 toness of waste in - less the 70,000 tonnes of ash leaves 140,000 tonnes per year of something going somewhere else. 108,000 tonnes of it is Carbon Dioxide. This was inadequately considered by the Environment Agency and they have now had the licence they issued to Veolia Quashed (an historical first).
This still leaves 32,000 tonnes p.a. of other emissions from the proposed incinerator unaccounted for.
Be well assured that people in Newhaven, while being poorer and in a more deprived area than most of the rest of East Sussex, are not stupid and have done and are contuing to do their own research so we are as well if not better informed than ESCC, B&HCC and Veolia.
Rick, Brighton says...
1:38pm Thu 13 Dec 07
Poorer areas tend to be the more industrial ones. They're the most suitable places for it. There just isn't the room for a large plant in the centre of Brighton, though I'm sure arguments could be raised for other suitable sites.
But empty and industrial areas will get industrial projects.
That doesn't mean that incinerators are not the least-worst option for disposing of waste which cannot be recycled. Not least when the recovered heat is used sensibly.
Scorpion, Newhaven says...
5:22pm Thu 13 Dec 07
There is also some evidence to show that in some other places in the UK, recycling has fallen after an incinerator has been put in place. I have some experience of a German Incinerator which was being fed recycled paper to keep it going, much to the outrage of local people. These incidents are being used to illustrate that, if recycling is done properly, incineration will suffer, or, if you use incinerators, recycling suffers.
Given ESCC's effective financial cap on districts which do effective recycling, they dont want recycling to be a success. After all, they have a contract to feed an incinerator.
Rob Whittle, Norwich says...
7:32pm Thu 13 Dec 07
DPM from traffic is a problem, Nell et al in Los Angeles conclude this. I bet Incinerator PM2.5 are even fare more potent in make up (cocktail of a 1000 potential unmonitored chemicals, compared to about 20 or so in DPM from traffic/HGVs. Nell actually emailed me this year and stated he hated to think the PM2.5 makeupcoming out from modern incinerator stacks. The higher the burn temperature to get rid of dioxins, the smaller the PM size and count. PM2.5s must be the greater risk and concern over trace dioxins from modern incinerators in EfW/CHP form. So its ethically quite correct to oppose these PM2.5 machines. The alternatives are better, cheaper, cleaner. In 5 years time incinerator technology will be effectively obsolete. Some say it is now. I think they have a valid point from several different directions!
splitter101, says...
10:23am Tue 18 Dec 07
If not, how can you possible attribute all infant mortality to any one cause?
Here are the aspects you need to factor in for your mapping to be anything other than Hysteria (something your buddies Michael Ryan and Dr Van Steenis have been accused of recently and here is the funny part, by the people opposing the Bucks Incinerator):
Cause of death:- You should attempt to separate the cause of death to ensure you are not counting inappropriate infant mortality. If you cant, then you should at least state that this is a limitation of the mapping.
Confounding:- You need to be aware that infant mortality is influenced by relative deprivation, the age of mother, single parent families, ethnicity and lifestyle. If you dont account for the wide range of risk factors, your mapping it isnt worth anything.
Actual exposure:- You need to get some form of air quality data in there so you can actually state that these communities are exposed to X amount of pollutant, if not your trying to attribute an already complex health effect with no evidence of exposure. Its like saying that Mc Donalds are a cause for infant mortality. Its simply finger pointing,
Scientific Rigour:- My greatest concern is that you state that the mapping is based upon national statistics, but what you dont say is that it looks like you have aggregated the data over a number of years and then only mapped the data that is of interest to you. Firstly, as soon as you manipulate the data it stops becoming a national statistic (as they cant guarantee its accuracy anymore), if you do decide to manipulate the data you need to provide a rationale or at least a reference to the original statistic. And then you need to map all of the appropriate date and not just the Wards youre interested in.
For further help on this I recommend you get a copy of the London Health Observatory study on the risk factors and distribution of infant mortality in London (Born Equal 2007). Its pretty good, and should help in alleviating some of your concerns.
Rob Whittle, Norfolk says...
1:26pm Mon 24 Dec 07
Most of your debate is largely spurious deprivation science and deflects from the obvious data patterns.
Please define Deprivation in the UK(not Africa) its a social gumpf measure; that also includes low and behold "air polltion".
Deprivation (western stil) has been proven to not cause asthma and CODP. So far the deprivation school hasn't narrowed causal paths to infant mortality, other than speculation. The only commonality is urban areas that produce most air pollution, deprivationists have managed to fix maps for. Above genetics, high fat diet and PM2.5 pollution causes spiked infant mortality, athmas COPD. (NEJM). This is scientific fact in the US challenge and proven in the US supreme court.
LHO, anything that maps deprivation Elliott style (UK measure) isn't worth the paper its written on. All the USEPA, Six City studies, NEJM PM2.5 studies are authorative which I heartily reccommend you do a little follow up work on. Being a single mother, a different skin colour, young mother, old mother etc doesn't cause infants to peg out in 300% + rates.
Dr John Snow had all the same detractor in the C19th linking chlorera to midden distribution, when traditional thinking (like todays deprivation school) though cholera was air bourne. Snow was correct with his causal pathway, no monitors, and this had a profound value. Perhaps at the time knockers were accusing snow of hysteria, where actually he exposed the truth and saved lives, though politically inconvenient!
Splittere101, says...
11:23am Fri 4 Jan 08
What is the 300% increase in actual infant mortality count, (i.e. is it an increase from 1 to 3 infant mortalities or 100 to 300).
Its important to ask as this will help in separating some of the confounding.
Joëlle van Tinteren, says...
3:42pm Tue 8 Jan 08
From what I see the waste debate continues to rage in Brighton and still seems stuck in the mire of the vested interest parties propaganda.
Can you tell me please how much waste you think cannot be recycled?
Yours,
Joëlle van Tinteren
Ex-chairman, DOVE
Rob Whittle, Norwich says...
11:42am Fri 11 Jan 08
Lets take Sita Kirklees (the CHP incinerator that exploded last year) example 2002-2005 ONS data. Downwind ward zone infant deaths (0-12months)59; upwind ward infant mortality 11; I think that significant and about 900% or 9x by my mathematics. Low/ zero infant mortality were present in deprived upwind wards, and hign infant mortality rates were also recorded in areas downwind that were not deprived. So its not 000's, but it is not a spurious handful of 1-3 in numbers, or just one incinerator. In fine particle population infant mortlity measures are the first sign of a problem, followed by longer term studies and conditions such as Asthmas, increased SRM and heart disease/ COPD. So we are dealing with significant unresolved numbers of babies that consistantly have a downwind of incinerator pattern. No study has been done of the possible health impact patterns in numbers of the effects on damaging on a larger and wider scale damage to infants immune systems. Downwind Infant death figures are probably the current measurable tip of a larger iceberg that is likely to extend to asthmas and weakened infant immune systems. IMO Michael Ryan published his standard methodology for ONS treatment in his 2002 Bexley paper (online).
Rob Whittle, Norwich says...
11:48am Fri 11 Jan 08
Rob Whittle, Norwich says...
12:03pm Fri 11 Jan 08
Spliter101, says...
4:37pm Tue 15 Jan 08
Rob Whittle, Norwich says...
5:14pm Fri 8 Feb 08
Rob Whittle, Norwich says...
5:24pm Fri 8 Feb 08
http://www.molevalle
y.gov.uk/index.cfm?A
rticleid=3585
If you saw a several more of these maps of government ONS data around modern incinerators, would you not be rather concerned that a common and pathway link cause was at work?
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Scorpion, Newhaven says...
12:49pm Tue 11 Dec 07
They called it an Energy from Waste plant - but they aren't intending to connect it to the national grid. Check the plans. Check the application. No... its always been a waste incinerator accompanied by £145 million in sugared soft soap that only County and City councillors believe.
Value for money. Dont make me laugh.