Protest at Coega HQ against proposed aluminium smelter

By Guy Rogers Environment & Tourism Editor

THE government does not have to “destroy people‘s health in order to create jobs” and the Coega Development Corporation is “missing the green train”.

This was one of the main arguments that emerged from a protest outside the CDC offices against the Coega aluminium smelter.

Organised by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Local Environmentalists (Nimble), the 100 or so protesters included professionals, academics, students, housewives, farmers, tourism operators and workers.

A few CDC employees watched impassively from outside the corporation‘s front doors in the car park in Humerail while the group chanted “No to Alcan” and “Save PE” and waved banners stating: “Develop don‘t destroy” and “Alcan will use three times more electricity than our town”.

Other banners said: “Do we want our children to have to deal with imported pollution?”, “Smelter = loss of tourism jobs” and “Alcan will use our electricity for next to nothing while 30 per cent of our people have no electricity!”

Marine biologist Dr Shirley Parker- Nance said Algoa Bay was one of the richest marine systems in the world and about 40% of species had still not been identified. She is working on a project to identify species that can be harnessed in the fight against cancer.

“Whatever Alcan or the CDC promises, there is definitely going to be pollution into the bay, effecting this resource, and into the air. On the best days like today, with a slight northerly wind blowing – that‘s when those poor kids in the townships are going to start coughing.”

Another marine biologist, Dr Eckart Schumann, said the fact that Alcan would have to import the aluminium ore from where it was mined, probably Australia, incurring substantial costs, raised the question why the multi-national was still so keen to build at Coega. “It makes you realise just how cheap the electricity is that Eskom has offered them.”

Alcan, Eskom and the public enterprises department have declined to supply details of the deal with the multi-national, citing the violation of trading rights, despite a formal application lodged by Earthlife Africa through the Promotion of Access to Information Act.

Schumann said the fact that power for the smelter would be coming either from a new gas turbine at Coega, with the importation of the required liquefied gas, or through a giant new transmission system linking up with the Eskom grid, was clearly also a huge cost. Exactly how much this would cost the taxpayer and why this expenditure still made the deal beneficial for South Africans should be made clear, he said.

Warrick Barnard of the Valley Bushveld Affected Parties said his organisation – representing farmers and communities as well as eco-tourism, conservation and hunting enterprises in the Steytlerville and Wolwefontein area – felt “helpless and steamrollered” by Eskom‘s transmission link proposal. The proposed line will require the clearing of a servitude of 240m and the pylon towers will be 55m high.

Walmer housewife Julie Bosworth said she hoped that the protest was the beginning of a new spirit of activism in Port Elizabeth.

Nimble spokesman Greg Smith said he felt that decision-makers were “stuck in the poverty versus environment scenario. It doesn‘t have to be like that. We don‘t have to destroy people‘s health to give them jobs.”

Coega communication manager Vuyelwa Qinga said: “Coega is accountable to an independent environmental monitoring committee.

“The government wouldn‘t allow Coega to go ahead if it would be of any harm to the environment.”