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By Ira Karen Apanay, Senior
Reporter
THE Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)
has urged the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)
to intervene and ensure the environmental protection of Cebuanos
against the construction of a 200MW coal-fired power plant in Naga,
Cebu.
The FDC, in partnership with
several environmental lawyers in Cebu, expressed in the strongest
possible terms its opposition to the impending approval by Asian
Development Bank (ADB) on the Kepco Salcon Power Corp. (KSPC) loan
of $120 million for the construction of its 200MW coal-fired power
plant.
FDC-Cebu Secretary-General Lito
Vasquez also called on the Department of Energy (DOE) to move away
from its bias on coal and seriously implements the country’s
renewable energy law.
The project is a joint venture of
Kepco Philippines Holdings and Salcon Power Corp. called the Visayas
Base Load Power Project involving the construction and operation of
a 200MW coal-fired power plant to provide additional base load power
to the Visayas grid.
In a statement, the group said
the power industry is a major contributor to climate change with
power plants utilizing fossil fuels such as coal contributing the
highest amount of CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.
The project is categorized under
Category A, projects that have significant adverse environment
impacts that require submission to the lending institution an
environmental impact assessment (EIA).
However, Vasquez said the
KSPC’s EIA and Initial Poverty and Social Assessment (IPSA)
submitted to ADB glossed over health and environmental risks posed
by the coal-fired power plants. No information was provided on any
baseline data of studies undertaken.
“The mitigation plan does not
include a health program to monitor coal ash-related diseases plus
any mention on the impact on coastal communities and marine
ecosystems,” the group said in a statement.
Kepco entered into a memorandum
of agreement with the Cebu Province on July 3 to dump coal ash in a
P100-million 25-hectare property recently purchased by the province
that is partly submerged in seawater.
Environmental lawyers under the
Global Legal Action on Climate Change have questioned the deal for
conflict of interest and violation of existing environmental laws.
The province expects to earn $1
for each ton of coal ash dump, a token amount compared to the
overall degradation to be suffered by communities living near the
power plants and the coal ash dump area.
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