- Chinese Takeaway - Mark Meredith
Trinidad Express - Tuesday, Nov.
11th 2005
"The state of pollution in Nanching is bad. The sky is brown. When you come from a
country (New Zealand) that literally sparkles and the sky is so many shades of blue, and
are then presented with a landscape of grey and brown and a head heavy from fumes and
goodness knows what else, you kinda wonder: how do you live like that?" wrote New
Zealand TV One's Katie Wolfe while visiting China recently.
If she comes to Trinidad's south west peninsula in ten years' time, she may well ask the
same question. It is a Nanching aluminium smelter that ALUTRINT wish to import to Union
Estate. It will sit with a power plant, three urea ammonium nitrate plants (UAN) and,
possibly, a purpose-built hazardous waste facility for spent pot liners. It won't be far
from Alcoa's mega smelter, and steel smelter/s, or an assortment of petrochemical
processing plants straddling giant industrial estates from Point Lisas to the tip of
Cedros, even reclaiming the sea for such a purpose at Oropouche; a Nanching by the
Caribbean sea.
At ALUTRINT's first public consultation in La Brea's community centre on Wednesday night,
the audience was shown slides of a Chinese takeaway in Nanching. The Union smelter will be
a "carbon copy" of the Nanching model, said ALUTRINT's Project Development
Manager, Phillip Julien, son of the Prime Minister's energy guru Ken Julien. He said that
the Chinese were "truly proud of the design" and that the smelter would be built
for a "very good price".
In a surreal moment, photos of the Nanching smelter were projected onto the community
centre's mural of lush Trinidadian countryside: smelter pot rooms floating upon a green
tropical wetland.
We were told by Julien that the Chinese were "proud of the superiority of their
smelter and, to demonstrate that, they've created many green areas within the smelter
itself". The slide was of a large industrial complex dominated by an emissions stack
soaring out of shot. Small shrubby trees, like conifers, were arranged neatly on an area
of grass within the grounds of the ten-year-old plant. "This is interesting," he
said of a large housing complex we heard was "just on the outskirts" of the
smelter. It too was sprinkled with baby conifers.
"China has proven, and we've done a lot of homework on this, that their design meets
international environmental standards while maintaining its efficiency," claimed
Julien of the smelter sitting under Nanching's poisoned skies.
He told us China had "tripled aluminium production in the last nine years" and
now possessed 136 smelters, more than any other country; 17 per cent of the world smelter
market. Its 19 per cent economic growth in the same time period had "forced China to
develop a wealth of talent and experience in designing and building aluminium
smelters".
But this growth has also forced China to take stock, something we may want to copy too. In
2004, the Chinese People's Daily reported a central government circular ordering that
projects conflicting with "land use management" and involving
"over-investment and low-level repeated construction with consumption of huge energy,
water, materials and great pollution should be firmly stopped". No new projects of
"steel, aluminium and cement would be approved this year", the circular decreed.
During the Q&A session at the consultation, I asked Julien if we could get a copy of
the emissions data from the Nanching smelter; a track record. He thought that might be
possible, only problem was it would be in Mandarin. He could get it translated, he
offered.
The Chinese aluminium smelter company responsible for the takeaway delivery to Union
Estate is called the China National Machinery & Equipment Import & Export
Corporation (CMEC). The translation from Mandarin on its website (www.cmec.com) says CMEC
specialises in "joint venture and cooperative businesses" and deals
"principally in contracting international engineering projects, exporting complete
plants and equipment, importing and exporting mechanical and electrical products and
engaging in external economic and technical cooperation. Its turnover in 2004 reached
US$1.7 billion".
In fact, the corporation seems to do just about everything. But there is no mention
anywhere of Nanching, aluminium, smelters, or examples of such plants in China or any of
the "120 countries and regions" CMEC has "business relationships" with
around the world.
ALUTRINT's Phillip Julien emphasised the size (125,000 metric tonnes) of the Union
smelter. "It's smaller, a more compact size, rather than the typical large, mega
smelters built by the large multinational companies."
Who could he be referring to? Looking at the ALUTRINT brochure with a cover featuring a
tiny green shoot poking through the earth, and the tag line: "An Aluminium Complex
that's the right fit for T&T!", I wondered if their proposed neighbours, Alcoa,
had a copy.
Explaining that ALUTRINT was "breaking the barrier" by building a smelter purely
to serve downstream requirements - the rod mill and wire/cable plant - and that Chinese
technology "was the only one that supports such a small smelter", he wanted to
emphasise something.
"We have to vie for customers and one thing prospective customers look for is the
environmental track record." What ALUTRINT are doing is "of a much higher
standard than if we were simply making metal and putting it on the international
market" he said.
Wednesday's consultation highlighted the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study which
is being directed by Dr Ahmed Khan of local company, Rapid Environmental Assessments Ltd
(REAL). When asked, Khan told me he had not written an EIA for an aluminium smelter
before, which was why he had brought in experienced personnel from the US and UK to
assist.
Much of what was presented was featured in the Non-Technical Summary highlighted in last
week's Sunday Express. However, we learned that the emissions stack would start at 60
metres, but the final height would depend on modelling exercises. When questioned, we
learned the smelter would capture 99 per cent of emissions, and that the company would
carry out medical sampling of the community throughout the life cycle of the plant.
We learned that hazardous waste, like spent pot liners and "dross", remains a
problem. Ahmed Khan told us the most "viable option" was encasement of waste in
cement and insertion into a cell in a "purpose-built" landfill.
We learned Phillip Julien wasn't really happy with the landfill option. Nor was an
interested Solid Waste Management Co Ltd employee at the consultation who had worked out
that the aluminium complex would produce five million kilogrammes of waste from pots and
dross during its lifespan. He was surprised "that such a modern smelter plant"
had no purpose-built waste unit.
We learned that waste storage will have to take place at Union Estate for the first few
years, with the possibility that any purpose-built waste unit might have to be permanently
located there.
We also learned something Alcoa - whose smelter at 341,000 tonnes would be more than twice
the size of ALUTRINT's - are apparently unaware of. Having said earlier this year they
"didn't yet know" how they would dispose of their pot liners, Alcoa have since
thrown up the idea of shipping the stuff somewhere else.
Sorry guys. According to Dr Khan, this country is a signatory to the Basle Convention
which prohibits the transshipment of hazardous waste.
We learned that our contributions to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions from
the smelters and other heavy energy-based industries would be countered by carbon
sequestration, or reforestation, led by National Energy Company's (NEC) Dr Reeza Mohammed.
We learned from Dr Khan that the NEC has a "master plan for the industrialisation of
the south west peninsula". And we learned again, in case we had forgotten, the human
trauma such a process entails.
Driving over the red earth of the ever-evolving Martian landscape of Union Estate six
months after my last tour, I found not much had changed. Rather than swirling dust clouds
bothering residents, they were now being plagued by mosquitoes breeding in the rain-filled
craters of the red planet next door.
A leaden atmosphere of depression, inevitability and loss seems to hang over the area,
like a Nanching sky. At Union Village the residents have nearly settled on their
relocation area and compensation package with NEC. The 100-year-old community is making
way for two giant UAN plants.
The other community being moved is at Square Deal Corner. They are making way for
ALUTRINT, but their relocation issues have not been settled to their satisfaction - far
from it. The accommodation on offer from NEC makes them angry.
I drove down their terrible road/track, past proud little homes and patios, painted
mailboxes, vegetable gardens, flowers and shrubs, the tiny shop, and children playing
basketball against a backdrop of gouged red cliffs and shorn forest walls.
"Our life is in limbo. What will become of us?" asked an angry spokesman of the
ironically named Square Deal community at the consultation. "We want to know. We want
to get on with our lives," he said in exasperation at having to avoid his neighbours
because he wasn't able to tell them what would become of them.
A moment that encapsulates the reality of industrial development Trinidad-style came when
an elderly, blind woman from Square Deal was led to the microphone. Her voice was loud,
quivering with emotion, booming from the speakers.
"I'm a grandmother, with 14 children and grandchildren. I build my home 38 years ago!
You want me to move to a tool shed! No garden! I am not moving to a tool shed! If you want
me to move put me in a proper house. And you want to give me $15,000 for my home!",
she wailed, addressing the ALUTRINT panel, head and sightless eyes focused in another
direction.
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