Environmental group, Future Sooner, is convening a community meeting to plan the next stage in a campaign to improve local air quality and cut toxic emissions from Vales Point Power Station.
This follows a community awareness campaign in January, when members of Future Sooner and the Nature Conservation Council of NSW placed hundreds of child silhouettes along the Lake Macquarie foreshore in front of the power station at Mannering Park, to visualise the number of children with asthma impacted by the emissions.
That was in response to an application by the power station owners, Delta Electricity, seeking a five-year extension on its licence relating to emission levels of nitrogen dioxide.
“The community scored a significant victory in February when the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) agreed to consult the community before deciding whether the Vales Point coal-fired power station should be exempt for another five years from having to comply with stricter emission controls,” said Will Belford, spokesperson for Future Sooner.
“Nitrogen dioxide from power stations is a leading cause of asthma among children and yet Vales Point is allowed to pollute at rates many times higher than other facilities,” he said.
“Getting the EPA to agree to consult the community is just the first step on the road to cleaning up the air.
“We have to maintain the pressure to ensure that this small win results in real and lasting improvement in health standards for kids in the region,” Belford said.
The community meeting, entitled Put Our Children’s Health First: Clean Up Vales Point, will be held on Saturday, March 13, from 10am to 12pm at Kariong Eco Garden Hall, Dandaloo St, Kariong.
One of the speakers at the community meeting will be Dr Ben Ewald, an epidemiologist who identified that 650 children on the Central Coast and Lake Macquarie have asthma because of coal-fired power stations.
Another speaker will be Christine Freeman, a local mother of a child with asthma.
In a statement from the EPA on Monday, March 8, a spokesperson said the EPA was still working through the organisational phase before it would call for submissions and seek wider public consultation on the Vale Point Power Station application to extend its licence.
Sue Murray