Pollution postponements give industry a licence to kill http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2015/03/05/pollution-postponements-give-industry-a-licenceto-kill
05 Mar 2015 | Bobby Peek and Tristen Taylor
In the contest between bonuses for CEOs and the health of citizens, the government went for the
cash, write Bobby Peek and Tristen Taylor
IN 1995, then president, Nelson Mandela promised cleaner, less toxic air for communities around
industrial plants. Last Tuesday, President Jacob Zuma’s administration broke this promise.
When the government granted Eskom, Sasol, Engen, and other companies, postponements for
meeting air quality standards last week, it condemned communities near those industries to years of
toxic, life-threatening pollution.
The African National Congress was elected into government to protect people, not poison them.
The Air Quality Act is supposed to ensure the management of air pollution in SA is not only at the
point where we breathe air, but also at the source of the pollution; a critical point focusing on the
polluter. The decision taken by the government has fatal effects as Eskom will kill, prematurely, tens
of thousands of people. The status quo will remain: half of the Highveld’s hospital admissions and
half the respiratory-related illnesses will be as a result of Eskom.
The economic cost associated with the sickness and death caused by Eskom and the neurotoxic
effects of mercury exposure have been estimated at R230bn.
To understand the government’s decision, one has to go back to 1995.
On the morning of March 25, Mandela was on his way to open a new expansion of the Engen oil
refinery south of Durban — an expansion that did not include the necessary pollution reduction
equipment, as Engen wanted to save money and admitted so in the refinery’s environmental impact
assessment.
Members of the community protested as Mandela drove in. He stopped, met the protesters and
four days later met representatives of the community, industry and various members of his Cabinet.
After hearing them, Mandela instructed the parties to resolve their differences and this gave birth to
the struggle for air pollution emission standards, which did not exist in SA at the time.
Exactly three years after Mandela’s promise, Engen finally agreed on emission reductions and
presented the community with its reduction plan, which the south Durban community forced the
government to write into Engen’s permit.
In 1998, the National Environmental Management Act was enacted. In clause 35, it allowed for
industries to self-regulate their emissions. The petrochemical industry used this loophole in 2001 to
try to force an agreement through government for "voluntary" emission reductions rather than
standards. Communities resisted, and this was consequently dropped from the government’s
agenda. It was a victory for society.
The fight for emission standards continued. In February 2004, on Valli Moosa’s watch as minister,
the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism tried to force through SA’s first Air Quality Bill
without air pollution standards.
Resistance from community organisations and broader civil society, and inputs from air quality
experts, resulted in the bill being reintroduced with mandatory minimum emission standards.
However, all was not well.
As the Air Quality Bill was being finalised, an exemption clause was included in it. This was wrongly
used by Eskom to seek exemptions from meeting emission standards. However, it later changed its
application to rolling postponements — which, in effect, amount to exemptions.
Essentially, the postponements granted by the government have made toxic air legal air.
Postponements have made section 24 of our constitution redundant. Section 24 says every person
has a right to an environment that is not harmful to their health and wellbeing, and to have the
environment protected through reasonable legislative measures.
Over the period that the postponements have been granted to Eskom — essentially over the life
span of its plants — Eskom’s pollution will result in about 20,000 premature deaths, including about
1,600 deaths of young children.
The government knows these figures: last year, various civil society organisations and health experts
gave detailed inputs on Eskom’s negative health effects. Yet, with these postponements, the
government has chosen to ignore the scientific data.
The case of Eskom is particularly concerning as the state owns 100% of it. The state passed a law in
2004 requiring air pollution standards, and has now refused to obey that very same law.
It is as if the police suddenly decided not to obey the criminal code and started to deal drugs from
stolen cars, and the Department of Justice, in response, gave the police a pay increase instead of
hauling the head of the South African Police Service off to prison.
Of course, and as usual, the postponements have been granted in the name of the economy. Forcing
compliance with air quality standards now, so the argument goes, would allow insufficient time for
compliance and cost too much.
However, industry has had plenty of time to plan and implement pollution control technologies. In
fact, since 2004, companies have had 11 years of grace in which to adapt their plants.
Instead of cleaning up their act, SA’s big industrial concerns such as Eskom, Sasol and Engen did
nothing — forcing a showdown with the Department of Environmental Affairs. Last Tuesday, the
department blinked and climbed down from Mandela’s promise.
In the contest between bonuses for CEOs and special share dividends, and the health of South
African citizens, the government went for the cash.
More alarmingly, in the postponements that were granted, the government does not admit to the
true reality that this is not a five-year reprieve, but rather a permanent reprieve, and that the
government will have to pick up the cost of Eskom’s pollution as people become ill and put strain on
the health system, or put strain on the economic system as they are too sick to work.
Ask the very many people who have been turned away from jobs in the Highveld and on mines
because they do not pass the entrance medical — essentially, they are too sick to work.
The government has provided an answer about air quality to the people of the Highveld, south
Durban, the Vaal, Johannesburg and other polluted areas.
The answer to polluting factories, power plants and refiners is simply and sadly for ordinary people
to suffer, to cough, to develop chronic respiratory illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis, to be
vulnerable to diseases such as tuberculosis, to suffer various cancers and to bear children with birth
defects, and in some cases to die prematurely — all in the name of profit and energy for industry.
• Peek is a director at groundWork. Taylor is co-ordinator at Earthlife Africa Johannesburg.