A legal challenge against the Environment Agency has been lodged over concerns that residents will be exposed to the potentially hazardous effects of the development of one of Europe’s biggest waste incinerators.
No Essex Incinerator Limited (also known as Parishes Against Incinerator: PAIN) has applied for permission to judicially review the Environment Agency’s decision to grant the developer of the incinerator, Gent Fairhead, permission to vary the environmental permit it has had since 2017.
The permit means that Gent Fairhead can build a stack – used to disperse the pollutants produced by the integrated waste management facility on Rivenhall Airfield – of just 35 metres.
This is despite having previously refused a permit for an incinerator with a chimney of the same height.
Objectors and residents worry the plume generated by the facility will not be able to safely dissipate from a stack 35 meters high.
The Environment Agency (EA) announced on January 2 that it was minded to approve a permit variation to allow the proposed Rivenhall Airfield Waste Incinerator to operate with a 35-metre high chimney stack – Gent Fairhead & Co. Ltd was granted planning permission for a stack that height in 2010.
An environmental permit is also required before the site can be operated, and this was issued by the EA in 2017, so long as the site used a 58-metre high chimney stack.
Essex County Council had refused a stack this high on the grounds it would damage the views and that it had not been demonstrated that there was a need for a facility of the capacity of the incinerator.
Now the EA says that a lower stack can be allowed for the facility, due to advanced filtering techniques and stricter limits on emissions of oxides of nitrogen (so-called NOx), sulphur dioxide and lower limits for certain heavy metals.
The EA says these changes make a 35-metre high stack, which has been granted planning permission, acceptable.
There are fears that the uniquely low height of the stack will severely impact the air quality on homes in the surrounding area. Of particular concern is the potential effects on the hundreds of children who attend primary schools in the local area.
PAIN also has serious concerns about the effects the development would have on the environment if the permit goes unchallenged.
PAIN, which says that the emissions from the site would be equivalent to 120,000 cars each travelling 8,000 miles a year around Braintree, argue that permitting the 35-metre stack height amounted to a breach of the Industrial Emissions Directive, and even if a 35-metre stack was capable of being a ‘best available technique’, the EA failed to take into account the need to reduce to a minimum the overall impact of the emissions on the environment.
They add that the decision was made in a manner contrary to guidance produced by the EA without good reason.
The plant would include an anaerobic digester which could process 75 tonnes of non-hazardous waste a day, an incineration plant with the capacity to process more than three tonnes an hour, and a mechanical biological treatment facility.
Nick Unsworth, PAIN campaigner, said: “This is the last roll of the dice for us and, as there is no ombudsman or arbitration mechanism, somebody must ask why this has been allowed given the EA’s original emphatic refusal of a 35-metre stack.
“It seems totally contrary to the climate change crisis we face, what we now know about the impacts of air quality on human health, education, schools, and the impact of CO2 on our environment (the incinerator will generate 500,000 tons per year) never mind the various agreements the UK government has signed up to.
“In addition, there are lessons within the Covid-19 pandemic we must heed that showing us what actually happens when we reduce emissions and the subsequent improvement in air quality.”
John Crowley, a solicitor at Leigh Day who is representing the campaign group, said: “Our client believes that the building of a 35-metre stack at what will be one of the biggest waste incinerators in Europe will have a massively negative effect on the lives of residents in the surrounding villages.
“In giving permission to vary the terms of Gent Fairhead’s existing licence, and going against its previous decision on the subject, my client believes the EA has not only failed to follow the relevant EU legislation but also its own guidance.”
A spokesperson from the EA said: “We stand by our technical assessment and remain satisfied with our decision that the lower stack height will not result in any significant change to current local air quality and that no human health thresholds will be exceeded
Article originally appeared on Essex Live
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