States Meeting Transcript - 08/07/2008

STATES OF JERSEY OFFICIAL REPORT TUESDAY, 8th JULY 2008

PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption ...............................................................2

1. Energy from Waste Facility: establishment and acceptance of tender (P.72/2008).....2

1.1 Deputy G.W.J. de Faye of St. Helier (The Minister for Transport and Technical Services):................................................................................2

1. Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier:................................................9
2. Senator F.E. Cohen:....................................................................14
3. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire: ...............................................................14
4. Deputy J.B. Fox of St. Helier:..........................................................26

5. Deputy J.A. Martin:....................................................................28
6. Deputy C.J. Scott Warr en of St. Saviour:...............................................30
7. Connétable S.A. Yates of St. Martin:...................................................31

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED..................................................33 The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):......................................................33

LUNCHEON ADJOURNMENT................................................................33

8. Deputy S.C. Ferguson of St. Brelade : ..................................................33
9. Deputy C.H.Egré:......................................................................35
10. Deputy A.E. Pryke of Trinity : .......................................................36
11. Deputy R.C. Duhamel of St. Saviour:................................................36
12. Deputy J.J. Huet of St. Helier:.......................................................55
13. Deputy S. Power of St. Brelade:.....................................................58
14. Deputy A.D. Lewis of St. John:......................................................60
15. Senator F.H. Walker :................................................................62

ADJOURNMENT PROPOSED.................................................................66 ADJOURNMENT................................................................................66

The Roll was called and the Dean led the Assembly in Prayer.

PUBLIC BUSINESS – resumption

1. Energy from Waste Facility: establishment and acceptance of tender (P.72/2008) The Greffier of the States (in the Chair):

We come now to the continuation of Public Business. As agreed, the first item to be taken today is the Energy from Waste Facility: establishment and acceptance of tender and I ask the Deputy Greffier to read the proposition.

The Deputy Greffier of the States:

The States are asked to decide whether they are of opinion to refer to their Act dated 13th July 2005 in which they approved a new solid waste strategy and charged the then Environmental Public Services Committee to investigate fully alternative and conventional technologies to provide the final disposal route for the residual waste remaining following the implementation of the systems and facilities and to their Act dated 28th June 2006 in which they agreed that any such technologies for the final disposal route for the residual waste should be located at La Collette II reclamation site and (a) to approve the preferred solution for the replacement of the Bellozanne incinerator of an Energy from Waste facility as set out in sections 8 and 10.1 of the report of the Transport and Technical Services Department dated 20th May 2008, (b) to authorise the Minister for Transport and Technical Services to accept the tender of the preferred bidder subject to the approval of the transfer from the consolidated fund of the necessary capital expenditure.

1.1 Deputy G.W.J. de Faye of St. Helier (The Minister for Transport and Technical Services):

It is hard to over-emphasise the dire position that Jersey's key strategic waste disposal facility is now in. The Bellozanne incinerator is effectively crippled and will never operate at full capacity again. This is hardly surprising as the plant is well past its original design life and should have been replaced on an operational basis several years ago. Very regrettably, successive States Assemblies and those subsidiary bodies that are more directly responsible have contrived, by failing to make the appropriate decisions over the last decade, to place the Island's ability to properly dispose of its own rubbish in serious jeopardy. This year, following serious structural failures in the main steel joists that support the bunker crane at the incinerator, the Bellozanne chimney that stands immediately alongside the plant suffered some level of movement that broke a gas-tight seal formed between an internal flue and one of a series of internal reinforced concrete support platforms near the top of the chimney stack. This allowed the exhaust gases to mingle with moisture that gathers at the very top level of the chimney, effectively creating a sulphuric acid generator that was producing a highly corrosive substance 24 hours per day. That acid progressively ate away at the steel reinforced concrete floor, which supports 3 internal brick flues of some 40 tonnes in weight. By the time this was all discovered and mitigating action was taken, the steeplejacks considered the position to be so fragile that they have not placed any additional weight on the corroded support platform, which now has an induced curvature resulting from its structural weakness reacting to the weight above it. For Members who may not yet appreciate the gravity of the position, I should emphasise that continued acid attack would have caused that concrete platform to fail. Rendering the chimney safe by securing the damaged platform with steel cables bolted to the outside of the chimney will cost around £0.75 million. The operational capacity of the chimney has been severely curtailed as the internal vibrations caused by the speed and volume of the exiting emissions must now be reduced. This has particularly affected the newest of the 3 incinerator streams, which can no longer operate at full capacity, and that is why I am now describing the plant to Members as being permanently crippled. I do not intend to labour this aspect of the debate any further. Previously, various individuals had argued that the appropriate course of action was to seek to prolong the life of the Bellozanne incinerator as opposed to replacing it. It must surely be obvious to all Members that this concept is now utterly

unrealistic, not to say potentially hazardous. Indeed it has been ruled out by the consultants advising the Environment Scrutiny Panel. Although the question of just how long the operational capacity of the plant can be prolonged remains, as without it Jersey faces a crisis. This is a serious matter as the Island has no significant alternative disposal route for our waste. Increasingly frequent boiler breakdowns at Bellozanne have necessitated the stockpiling of baled waste at La Collette. Transport and Technical Services has been obliged to purchase a new baling machine to cope. The situation with the chimney has made matters worse and T.T.S. (Transport and Technical Services) is already looking at additional sites for stockpiling waste as well as investigating the opportunities for shipping waste off Island. The early signs are not promising and it will probably be helpful to Members to take an opportunity to address the general shipping issues at this point. In respect of shipping general waste to the United Kingdom mainland, a regulatory officer from the Environment Agency has already delivered this view and I quote: "The U.K. (United Kingdom) Plan on Shipments of Waste 2007 prohibits imports of waste for disposal except from those countries where bilateral agreements or a duly reasoned request has been agreed beforehand. Approval for import in these circumstances is based on the determination that the exporting country does not have, nor can be reasonably expected to acquire the technical capacity or the necessary facilities to dispose of its waste in an environmentally sound manner. Because Jersey has the technical capacity and necessary facilities for dealing with municipal and/or domestic waste, a request to include this type of waste in a duly reasoned request is unlikely to be approved." I think that Members can understand the general thrust of that response is pretty clear. However, it should be said it is a different matter for recyclable materials being delivered to recycling plants in the United Kingdom and Europe, except that the cost of shipping in containers is not nearly as cheap as the Environment Scrutiny Panel might have you believe. Nevertheless, the panel seems to have moved on from earlier advice being passed to T.T.S., which was that local shippers were prepared to carry container-loads of local materials free, as otherwise those containers were travelling empty. The department has in fact consistently followed up these claims but so far has never been able to strike the same deals that appear to come so easily to Environment Scrutiny. The latest shipping costs on offer now presented to States Members as well in the reissue of R.69, Waste Management: Alternative Suggestions of the Environment Scrutiny Panel is now between £25 and £35 per tonne. While we agree with these prices for shipping container costs, that pricing does overlook the extra costs associated with some of the special packaging required for various recyclables, such as waste electricals, as well as the haulage costs at either end; all of which effectively triple the quoted container fee. This, of course, is the experience of living on an Island which already informs us that it is cheaper and wiser to avoid the costs of shipping wherever possible. Having the benefit of hindsight is a wonderful thing and, therefore, it is rather easy to criticise the Public Services Committee that met on 16th October 2000 under the presidency of the then Deputy Simon Crowcroft . However, it was a fateful meeting as the committee considered a report from consultants Carl Brow that, among other things, recommended the commissioning of an E.f.W. (Energy from Waste) incinerator for the cost of £60 million. Doubtless with good environmental intentions, the committee rejected officer advice and called for further work to be carried out to research, and I quote: "alternative methods of treating and disposing of non-inert waste." Nearly 8 years later one has to wonder just how much hindsight needs to be acquired before a conclusive decision can be reached on commissioning a new incinerator. However, in the intervening period a number of things have been learnt. Firstly, Jersey's experience has shown that bolting on additional incinerators to existing streams is very expensive and creates all sorts of compatibility and maintenance issues. This was dealt with in considerable detail in 2001, in a report by consultants Babtie Fichtner who investigated then the possibility of refurbishing the Bellozanne incinerator. Thus, even assuming that the Bellozanne plant was not crippled, virtually all parties now accept that bolting on yet more bits and pieces is not a viable proposition, either for the existing incinerator or for future incinerators. Rather surprisingly, the emissions still pouring daily

from the Bellozanne chimney had not surfaced as a significant political issue around that time. Instead, political representatives found themselves deluged with all sorts of alternative waste disposal technologies. The most well remembered will be the high pressure steam autoclave that formed part of a mixed technology disposal route proposed by Recycled Refuse International. So, faced with a confusing array of alternative options, in August 2003 the Environment and Public Services Committee of the day decided to initiate a tender process and advertised throughout Europe to determine the best waste solution for the Island. This debate today represents the culmination of that tendering process. As will be clear, the whole process that was triggered by the desire to research alternative methods of waste disposal has gone on for far too long. Matters were not helped when the States decided to instigate yet another investigation of alternative technologies after an amendment was added to the 2005 Solid Waste Strategy. Transport and Technical Services Department, and previously Environment and Public Services, have now analysed over 70 different waste treatment variants. Certain protocols have been applied. One that should be familiar to Members is that no technology will be considered unless it is represented by at least 2 plants that have successfully operated on an industrial basis for at least 2 years. Now, that particular protocol eliminated a significant number of new technologies and, interestingly, was recently supported, virtually word for word, by Juniper, the consultants commissioned by the Environment Scrutiny Panel. Other important considerations were efficiency in respect of electricity generation, the commercial viability of by-products and final disposal routes for any waste residues. Numerous consultants and experts weighed up the alternatives, and here I would like to pay tribute to the work carried out over several years by the Waste Strategy Steering Group which included not only States Members but also officers, experts in their own fields, from a number of our different departments. With that valuable assistance and advice, the steering group helped the Transport and Technical Services Department to whittle down the options that emerged from the original tender process. Regrettably, even at the final stages and for a variety of reasons, some promising tenderers withdrew, mainly for more certain offers of business elsewhere. However, in the end, the final preferred choices remained as incinerators that produce electricity. Regrettably, in the intervening years between 2000 and 2008, a number of predictions and concerns have come true. As a primarily based European product, incinerators are priced in euros. They had also been a rather unfashionable technology but, due to the emergence of a European landfill directive that threatened heavy fines for land filling, municipal authorities around Europe swiftly turned to incineration as the most effective alternative solution to dealing with increasing quantities of waste. Thus, over a very short period, the incinerator construction business turned from a buyer's to a seller's market and to compound the effect of rising prices, Sterling slumped against the euro. To make matters even worse, the global price of steel also surged. All of which makes the £60 million deal rejected in 2000 look like something of a bargain. Sadly, that is all now consigned to history and the individuals involved will question their own consciences or not. What I do want to say to the Assembly is that we still have a bargain that can be realised. The tender process was a keen one and we have a competitive price to strike. That deal is currently frozen, irrespective of the continuing fluctuations of currency and commodity prices, but only for a matter of weeks. I will understand the concerns of both Members and the public over spending over £100 million. Even so, Members must remember that £106 million will buy a 2-stream Energy from Waste incinerator with reliable modern flue gas treatment that will have a design life of some 25 years and will produce 25 years' worth of electricity from a 10 megawatt turbine amounting to around 6 per cent of the Island's power demand. The new turbine, incidentally, will produce about 3 times as much power as the existing generator at Bellozanne. Now, I would not expect Members to rely on information that is merely corroborated by Transport and Technical Services Department and its consultants. Consequently, Members have been provided with a review of the cost comparisons in appendix 2 of projet 72 by Deloitte & Touche LLP. It includes net present values that some Members have asked for and continues to demonstrate that in financial terms the proposal of the preferred option being put forward to the States is the cheapest in respect of annual cost of all the variant technology options that have been considered. The tender bid consortium is led by C.N.I.M., a major international company with its origins in France; the letters formerly representing Construction Navales et Industrielles de la Méditerranée. C.N.I.M. are leaders in their field and are

supported by Spie Batignoles and the Jersey construction company Camerons. If we wanted a top specification incinerator, which I strongly suggest that we do, C.N.I.M. can provide it. So I do urge Members not to let another opportunity slip away. The approved location for the new E.f.W. plant is at La Collette to take advantage of the infrastructure existing at the J.E.C. (Jersey Electricity Company) power station. In particular, the existing chimney will be utilised and that location has already received outline planning permission in principle and the location does not form part of this debate under P.72. Nevertheless, I want to say that I have considerable sympathy with the concerns of residents living nearby and obviously with their political representatives and that is why the Transport and Technical Services Department has been consulting with Hopkins Architects to ensure that the building design is of a high quality. However, I do not accept the argument that a new incinerator building will somehow compromise a so-called gateway to St. Helier . In my experience most ferry passengers arriving in Jersey, assuming that they have not already made their way to the car deck for disembarkation, are taking in the historic proportions of Elizabeth Castle and not the industrial view on the starboard side which already contains the fuel farm and a very substantially-sized power station and chimney. While on the subject of the fuel farm, I should again emphasise that following the Buncefield incident, full risk assessment has been carried out in respect of the proximity of the proposed incinerator and the new hazard zones. It has emerged that, due to the low levels of personnel using and accessing the building, E.f.W. is an acceptable development and, indeed, it is one of the few types of development that could be located in that particular area. Returning to that location, I would suggest an opportune solution that could be considered in the short to medium term, which would be to increase the height of the mound or hill to the eastern side of the La Collette II reclamation site. Many Members will already know that a slight curvature in the existing reclamation site rock wall limits the height of the existing mound. A marginal extension to the reclamation site could replace the currently forming 2 low mounds to one much longer mound that would be very significantly higher with the potential to screen the greater part of the industrial zone to the west. Such an extension to the east has tremendous potential for increased public amenity as well as the more obvious aesthetic effect of screening and, if Members

felt it appropriate, I would be happy to pursue those matters further.

Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire of St. Helier :

Could the Minister tell us how high the proposed mound would be, please?

Deputy G.W.J. de Faye:

I am not in a position to give accurate details at this stage. It would depend on the rock wall below it. I would now like to pursue one of the aspects of waste disposal that has been a major problem to grapple with for most Members, and that is recycling and recycling targets. First of all, it is important to appreciate that there is very little agreement between countries as to what constitutes recycling. For example, using incinerator bottom ash might not be considered as recycling or it might acquire a low grade recycling status; while using bottom ash as an aggregate material to make concrete blocks for building might be regarded as a high grade level of recycling. Therefore, it is difficult to make direct comparisons between different places. Similarly, most publicly declared recycling targets are aspirational but not necessarily realistic. I take a local example, which I am sure Members will be familiar with and, as we will have heard, certainly on the news today and in your editions of the Town Crier that have been dispensed to Members this morning, the zero waste project that is still continuing at Havre des Pas has to be complimented and it certainly kicked off with a good name in public relations terms. But, regrettably, it did fall rather short of recycling 100 per cent of local rubbish. As an experiment in kerbside collections, the trial was indeed welcomed by Transport and Technical Services and the Parish of St. Helier have, up to now, claimed a 50 per cent recycling rate. In reality, the department believes this was, in fact, a capture rate, and a reasonably impressive one, which showed what could be done; but it was one that effectively fell within realistic expectations. Jersey has been slow to take up recycling, despite having got off to a very responsible start with glass collections. However, things have taken a

dramatic turn in recent years and targets are close to being achieved and, as a result, have been moved higher from 32 per cent to 36 per cent. Unfortunately, due to a buoyant economy and booming consumer demands, the total tonnage of waste has also increased over the same period, growing by 9 per cent since 2005. This means that steadily increasing recycling has not reduced the amount of material that ends up in the incinerator and it is these dynamics that form part of the calculations undertaken to work out the capacity that a new incinerator will need. Some other factors involved are the number of households in the Island, as distinct from the numbers of people, as well as the expected growth rate of the economy. However, although the detailed modelling of Jersey's likely waste stream over the next 2 decades is fairly complicated, the general background principles are rather basic. Primarily, the more recycling you do the more expensive it becomes. So, while recycling is environmentally responsible, not to say desirable, there is a balance that needs to be struck. By contrast, incineration is a relatively cheap way of disposing of refuse. It is a flexible and robust operation. Where the prevailing evidence indicates steadily increasing volumes of waste, despite recycling initiatives, it makes more sense to build a plant with spare capacity rather than one where the capacity may be exceeded. There have been suggestions that an oversized plant which normally operates 24 hours a day will face fundamental operational difficulties if recycling is very successful and there is not enough rubbish to burn. That is simply not true. The proposed 2-stream plant will often operate at just one stream at a time, which would offer just over 50,000 tonnes per year capacity at 100 per cent efficiency. However, the stream can be de-rated to as low as 36,000 tonnes throughput; thus the new plant can operate through a range of capacity loadings from 36,000 up to 105,000 tonnes per year. During this time the other stream can be either maintained or left on standby. In the extremely unlikely event that rubbish volumes drop even further, the incinerator can be simply shut down until waste levels in the storage feed bunker build up to operational levels. Start ups and shut downs are relatively simple procedures that involve raising the furnace and boilers to operating temperatures of around 800 degrees centigrade or allowing temperatures to cool down. As it is important to allow for the gentle expansion and contraction of incinerator components, those procedures are conducted over several hours. Consequently, start ups and shut downs are not conducted on a daily basis as that would increase wear on the plant. The existing incinerator is currently handling around 70,000 tonnes of waste per year. Given that the economy is expanding, that projections indicate that the number of households will increase and that total volumes of waste continue to rise, it is extremely unlikely that there will ever be less than 36,000 tonnes of rubbish per year to burn. The real worry is whether 105,000 tonne maximum capacity is enough. The latest calculations indicate that it will be

enough as long as the Island continues to push ahead with recycling in a fairly vigorous way. Again, to contradict those who claim that a new incinerator will curtail recycling, it is the opposite which is true. This is because existing recycling figures have been built into the capacity equation. The balanced approach set out in the 2005 Solid Waste Strategy, combining recycling and an Energy from Waste incinerator, can now be effectively set in stone or, more accurately, in the fabric of a new incinerator plant. This will represent a cultural step change for the whole Island and will necessitate the roll out of kerbside collections for recyclable material such as paper, cans and plastic bottles in every Parish. I very much welcome the moves I have seen today, announced by the Constable of St. Helier, that he is forthwith to tackle the recycle issue related to plastic bottles. Those moves will be supported by more "bring bank" opportunities for a wider selection of recyclable materials and, in time, a permanent re-use and recycling centre as well as an enclosed green waste composting operation. This task though will not be easy. The Parish Connétable s are already coming to realise the cost implications of increased kerbside collections and even "bring banks" have posed problems. On the positive side, the issue seems to be one of public demand. But following an enthusiastic start, the Connétable of Grouville had to take stock of matters when one of his "bring bank" operations was overwhelmed by responsible recyclers, regrettably from other Parishes. So Members must understand that more recycling will require more money and that is not something likely to emerge from a new tax in the near future. But, if we commit that extra money to recycling, can we get by with a smaller incinerator? Let me be clear, there are few, if any, who believe that we can get by without an incinerator facility of some sort. The short-term answer is no because the pressures that increase the amounts of rubbish being generated in Jersey are continuing. The States is about to debate rezoning more land for housing, so the number of local households that contribute to generating waste continues to rise. Immigration policies are still the subject of debate but I suggest that there is very little chance that a net nil migration position can be achieved. The economy is booming and consumerism within the Island does not seem likely to reverse its trend. As I have indicated before, the early stages of recycling are the most easily achievable and Members, I am sure, will be aware how in the last few years the recycling rates delivered by Transport and Technical Services have shot up from 20 per cent to nearly 30 per cent, but I can advise Members that now the going gets tough. Let us take a family, a family that goes through so many cans of food and drink per week. If all these are being recycled, then there is nowhere else to go to raise the recycling rate for metal cans in that household. That small example underlines why progressively higher recycling rates become more and more difficult to achieve. But what else could be recycled? Food waste is being touted as the big alternative via anaerobic digestion. This is a system that has some merit. Among other things it usefully generates methane gas as an energy source. But is it right for Jersey? The major downside in the process is that it produces thousands of tonnes of compost that then has to find a further disposal route and let us not forget that once one instigates a process, it effectively becomes a permanent process. Therefore, we will be having to find a disposal route for an additional, say, tens of thousands of tonnes of composted food waste on an ongoing and permanent basis. The department is already having a level of difficulty finding places to dispose of sewage sludge. We are obliged to pay farmers modest amounts for accepting on their fields both sewage and, let us not forget, the high quality green waste compost that is also produced by Transport and Technical Services. But the farmers, and dairy farmers in particular, have their own issues with composting, and dairy farmers regularly have to divest themselves of quantities of slurry produced by their herds. It is being suggested that there is some enormous land bank that we can easily contribute to. The fact is that land bank is under pressure already. Where else can we go: the dunes, Jersey heath lands? It is impossible to start diverting compost to these areas without seriously changing the bio-habitats simply by the addition of new materials. So we have a difficult problem with disposal. Of course, there are very large areas of agricultural fields where one might expect that composting might be welcome. Indeed it is, as long as it is the right sort of composting. But, and I need to emphasise this, very large landowners in this Island who are in the agricultural business are subject to supermarket protocols that govern precisely what they may put on their fields. I have no doubt that my claims will be questioned later on in this debate and I want to say very early on that I agree with the Environment Scrutiny Panel's position, that food waste composting does take place. It can be undertaken safely under regulations issued under the United Kingdom Government by Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), so I do not deny that food waste composting is a reality. Nevertheless, as I have said in the past to members of the Scrutiny Panel, DEFRA does not buy Jersey Royal potatoes and when you start looking at issues that apply to products being sold to U.K. customers we find ourselves in the realm of supermarket protocols. So may I just read to Members a little bit of correspondence that has been acquired from a technical agronomy manager, and later I will also refer to information received from our main growers: "Jersey is a pretty unique place. I know of no other location that produces a legally protected named crop of such sought after potential. I know also of no other location that plants potatoes year after year in the same place and rests the land by summer pasture. So Jersey is a bit of a special case." I should emphasise that, because it is the annual cropping that is the key feature in respect of supermarket protocols. Many supermarket protocols will allow 5-year rotations but Jersey, because of the annual crop rotation, falls into a special category. So I hope that if, at later stages in the debate, claims are made, we can be quite clear that the claims are made on an appropriate basis. I continue with the quote: "Things can go wrong here and perhaps other places can be more forgiving. In the 1950s and 60s when copper-based blight sprays were widely used in Jersey, it was your fields that had above national average of copper content and if chemistry had

not moved on, I would suggest that today you would not have an industry due to the high levels of metal in the ground. By introducing kitchen or house waste, you are running the risk of contaminants or objects that cannot be composted finding their way into the land. I am sure that you will use the best state-of-the-art kit but our concern as a retailer for Jersey is that in one field on one occasion something goes wrong and adverse headline or experience occurs. The States need to ask themselves whether the gain outweighs the risk. Are you solving one problem to create another?" The last sentence concludes: "Waitrose has good relations with the Island's growers but food scares, however small, are not grower specific and create havoc for all the Island growers. So I would ask again, do you need to take the risk?" To date the message from the States has been quite clear. This issue was debated in the 2005 Solid Waste Strategy and the States concluded it was sensible not to take the risk. However, the States did not then rule out, and I certainly do not now rule out, that circumstances may change and food waste may be a matter we will come to again some time in the future. I say to States Members that now is not the time to make that change and now is not the time to take the risk. Whatever the supermarkets may or may not say and however the protocols may or may not change, the message has come, also delivered in an e-mail to Transport and Technical Services Department dated 4th July; a message that is loud and clear: "The one thing to throw into the debate is that we, Jersey Royal, cannot be forced to take any compost and from our work with our customers, we will definitely not be taking any compost other than the green waste that Transport and Technical Services currently produce." But let us assume that we do recycle more. What is the effect on reducing tonnages? Unfortunately this all boils down to some issues that I have already covered, namely capture rates and what you might call recovery rates. It is a feature of general experience that for every 100 tonnes of waste that is attempted to be recycled, in reality the capture rate is about 70 per cent. The highest known of at the moment is 80 per cent and that would be very, very difficult to attain in the short term. The problem then is that, despite the fact that everybody tries hard to recycle properly, it is inevitable that there will be some

contamination. It is a fact of the matter that, like it or not, some people prefer not to separate out the eaten chicken but we will just wrap it up again in the cellophane it came in. It is a fact that paper just might get a bit of the chip fat on it. Contamination is a feature of our household waste, so you are always not really going to get all the products that you want and inevitably products are going to be contaminated. Therefore, achieving those figures, achieving useful tonnages of recycling, is very difficult to do. It also needs to be borne in mind that household waste is only one aspect of the whole waste picture. Therefore, when you boil it all down, we might save a few tonnes but what is the impact on the incinerator and the incinerator capacity? Well, if you go back to food waste, unfortunately food does not burn very well. So we might make substantial inroads into food waste tonnages but it does not make a lot of difference down at the incinerator because the incinerator runs on thermal capacity. So we have looked at some of the alternatives and it is possible that the capacity of the plant could be reduced from 105,000 tonnes to perhaps 96 or 97,000 tonnes. Will that make a big difference to the price of the plant? No, it will not. Is it really worth making those extra expenditures and all that effort to save that level of capacity? I do not believe it is when the financial gains simply do not stack up. As is fairly typical of any major States debate, some issues have popped up at the last minute and I wish to address, first of all, the suggestion that there is some major health issue at stake. Some rather misleading statements have been made about the cancer risks for people caught in the downwind plume of the new incinerator chimney at La Collette. May I say, first of all, the primary issue we are dealing with here is the major and known contamination being caused by the Bellozanne chimney exhaust emissions right now. That is what I wish to stop and that is what I believe most Members here wish to see an end of. That chimney does not have flue gas cleaning equipment. The new one will and I believe most Members will have seen the charts produced of the plume fallout and how the levels that are completely off the scale for Bellozanne - which incidentally has detectable levels of contamination across the entire Island - are reduced to the absolute lowest level that is on the scale. We are

talking hundreds and hundreds of times in terms of improvement in the emissions. There is nothing to worry about from a state-of-the-art, modern incinerator in respect of its exhaust emissions. But I do not wish to stand here as the expert on that subject and I am sure that the Minister for Health, if there are any issues to be pursued on that side of matters, will be the person to listen to. It has also been suggested that somehow we are about to build a plant that will be out of date before we build it and this derives from a proposed E.U. (European Union) directive on waste. Well, 2 obvious things to say, first of all. It is still a proposal in terms of being a directive and, no, we are not in the E.U. anyway; but that is not to say that the standards may not be something that we would wish to aspire to. The draft directive defines criteria for when an Energy from Waste plant is classified as a recovery plant rather than a disposal plant and it will not mean that any Energy from Waste plant which does not achieve the criteria will have to be shut down in 2020. Indeed it would be entirely disastrous for the whole of Europe if that was the case as there are currently dozens and dozens of new incinerator plants being built: "To be classified as a recovery plant, an Energy from Waste plant must achieve an energy efficiency of 60 per cent if it is permitted before 1st January 2009 or 65 per cent after this date." Clearly if the States approved the preferred option being put forward by the Council of Ministers, it would be before 1st January 2009 and in actual fact the new incinerator, on an energy efficiency rating, comes in ahead of 60 per cent; albeit by a margin, but it comes at about 61.3 per cent. Continuing: "The proposed plant will have an electrical efficiency [this is the E.U. proposal] of 24 per cent which is directly equivalent to an energy efficiency of 63 per cent." Now, it is important to make sure that we are comparing the right issues. If Jersey wishes to fully comply with the E.U. directive, if and when it comes into force, it is easy and possible to provide a small amount of heat to local developers by a community heat process and that would take energy efficiency well above 65 per cent. I suggest to Members that this is something we can keep our eye on. It is soluble and we can maintain those standards. I would be delighted to be standing here explaining the details of a suite of cutting edge alternative technologies that would save the Island millions of pounds in the costs of waste disposal but this debate is not about how clever or not I am and, unfortunately, the 8-year search for alternatives to

incineration has proved fruitless despite extended research and analysis. This debate is about doing the right thing for Jersey, so I would appeal to Members to put personalities to one side. Members may not appreciate my determined style of presentation but I hope none doubt that I believe passionately in working in the public interest and if I thought that a better solution to the Island's waste problems existed, it would be before the Assembly today. The preferred solution being put forward by Transport and Technical Services and supported by the Council of Ministers is the cheapest, most robust and flexible option for dealing with our rubbish. It will operate alongside enhanced recycling programmes that will extend Island-wide ; recycling across a wider range of items than are currently recovered. A new incinerator will offer assurance for the next 25 years. It will end the scandal of polluting emissions. It will be safe and it will be reliable. There is no more time to put off making a decision that should have been taken years ago and the opportunity to make this decision will not be repeated at currently quoted costs. Any further delay will simply cost more money. I urge Members to bring nearly a decade of prevarication to an end. Jersey led the field when the first Energy from Waste plant was commissioned. The Island has acquired nearly 30 years of experience operating these types of plant. We must not squander the skills that have been derived from that experience. A new Energy from Waste plant is the right thing for Jersey. We need it and we need it urgently and I ask Members to support the preferred solution that is put before them. [Approbation]

The Greffier of the States (in the Chair): Is the proposition seconded? [Seconded]

1. Connétable A.S. Crowcroft of St. Helier :

It is a very good start to this debate. We have been assured by the Minister that personalities are going to be kept out of it and I must say that is one of the several matters I agree with him about. He did stoop into personalising it a couple of times but I think we will let that pass in the interests of hopefully having a debate which is about the issues, the principles and the costs rather than the personalities. Other things I agree with the Minister about, and I am sure everybody in this House agrees, most importantly the existing incinerator is a disgrace and must be dealt with. I think, regardless of the decision that we make today, we really do need to work together and I feel that the Constables in particular will be willing to work with the Minister and with the department to take out of the waste stream in particular the things that are making the emissions so bad. It is, I believe, still practice that we are burning, for example, rubber tyres; we are burning hard plastics; we are burning batteries; and all kinds of things that chuck out the most dangerous products into the atmosphere. We need to tackle that now and to some extent .. and the Minister has not gone down this road - but to some extent in the recent build up to the debate people have been inclined to argue that the recent failures of the incinerator have some particular relevance on this debate. I am not sure that they do. We know, we accept, we have to replace the incinerator. What this debate is about is how we replace it. With what do we replace it? I agree with the Minister that a smaller incinerator .. he mentioned he could come down from 126 to 105, he could come down to 95,000 tonnes, and I agree with him that there is not much point in building an incinerator which is just a bit smaller. I agree with him that, if we build a new incinerator, the emissions will be within guidelines and, in fact, it has to be said, they will be a lot cleaner than what comes out of most of our cars and we should be paying a lot more attention to that perhaps than worrying about these very clean gases. But I suppose, with those opening remarks, our points of agreement have to end because while the Minister deplores the fact that 8 years have passed, and of course the process goes back longer than that, but 8 years have gone past since the year 2000 when a £60 million plant was offered to the then committee. He appears to suggest that nothing has happened in the world of waste treatment in the last 8 years or certainly that no .. he talks about a fruitless search for new technologies. Well, I am sorry but I think he is wrong. Enormous strides are being made in the field of alternative technologies. It is very easy for us to seize upon the snake oil salesmen who

have come to our doors and I am not going to mention any of them by mentioning their names. There are people who are offering the States all kinds of treatments. But I do want to mention one in particular because the Parish of St. Helier got very close to setting up a trial plant for a particular Jersey-based company that claimed that they could take all of their household waste in black bags, have a material separating facility to take out the valuable bits, like aluminium cans and so on, and then treat thermally the remainder of the waste and produce a plastic-type pellet, and I was going to bring some along today but they are in my office. I have examples of the plastic extruded elements that this company has produced. This company made a presentation to the St. Helier procureurs, the Roads Committee, and indeed through the Environment Scrutiny Panel to the Constables and there was a great deal of interest across the board in this new process, particularly, I suppose, because it was being promoted by a Jersey company. Very sadly, the company has decided to start its trial plant in the United States and that, I think, is a great shame but what I want to emphasise to Members is that those plastic pellets that many Members have seen, that technology has not gone away, it has not been rubbished by anyone. Indeed the work is moving on a pace and many other technologies, that is not the only one, but  many other ways of dealing with waste are being explored with ever-increasing vigour by communities around the world and we do not need to go into the reasons why that is happening; we all know why climate change is such a driver to people who are concerned about burning materials. One of the things that struck us most about this particular process, not only was it producing useful plastic panels, it could be used in a variety of ways, refuse derived fuel is another by-product of some of these processes but crucially it did not produce the 2 things that the proposed option today does produce. The proposed option may produce very clean exhaust gases but it still produces exhaust gases and we all know that these are a key concern in climate change discussions. So, however clean an incinerator is, it still has to have a chimney, it still has to generate a large carbon footprint. Secondly, and perhaps more worryingly, there is of course the ash which must be dealt with. Some of that ash will be useable and we understand that unlike our present incinerator the ash will be separated and bottom ash will be useful, possibly in concrete and other aggregates, but the heavily toxic fly ash, will have to be

stored ad infinitum in expensive sealed pits. So, incineration does not reduce the need for land fill. There will still be a need for permanent sealed pits for the toxic ash which are currently going on down at La Collette and I think Members should not forget that incineration has these by-products which have to be dealt with. Significantly, the alternative treatment, such as the one I mentioned earlier, do not produce any by-products. They are closed systems, they do not generate much other than water, and they do not generate any toxic ash. So, that is why I do not believe it is right to assume that these alternatives are not moving forward. They are moving forward and so a key question: is what is being proposed today the best environmental option for the Island? I would say that the case has not yet been made. Alternative technologies, as I say, need to be further explored. Indeed I am going to quote, and I am sure many Members will be quoting from the recent Juniper Report. In the executive summary which is perhaps the easiest place to start in 1.6 the consultants say: "In our opinion, handling all of the Island's residual waste within a single E.f.W. is an acceptable way of dealing with the problems, however, we do not accept that a case has yet been made that this is either the only practical approach, or indeed the best approach for Jersey." They are not ruling out incinerators; indeed Juniper spent a lot of their time recommending incinerators to large organisations, but they are not yet recommending it to us. Further down the executive summary in 1.11, and I quote: "We believe officers are right to stress the importance of only using proven technologies and agree with the criteria that have been adopted for judging this parameter, however, some technology options seem to have been eliminated on the basis of incorrect or outdated information. Within the body of our report we also criticise some of the other grounds that we use to narrow the range of technologies deemed to be appropriate for consideration as part of an overall integrated approach to managing wastes on the Island. We are concerned that this has led to an overemphasis on a solution dominated by a single, oversized E.f.W." Now, Members of course can simply ignore the Juniper Report if they wish and indeed Juniper were brought over yesterday by the Environment Scrutiny Panel to meet States Members and many States Members attended those meetings. I know that some of the Ministers who attended a briefing with Juniper were engaged, toward the end of that meeting, in trying to get from Juniper statements that they could use today. As I am speaking first, I am not going to be able to counter those but what I want to read out, and I wrote it down verbatim, and it will be on the record subsequently from the panel meeting. I want to read out a statement which I think very much corroborates the earlier statements from their report. The Managing Director said this: "There is a risk that we buy a large incinerator at a time when the world is waking up to the problem of climate change. We could end up with a white elephant as waste arisings dramatically fall off following changes in behaviour, supermarket

protocols and so on." I think that of course is the difficulty of the decision we have to make today. The Minister has made perhaps a compelling case for buying this particular incinerator; in fact, he called it a bargain, which I thought was probably over-egging the pudding, but his case has been well made. What Members have to decide is: will we end up with a white elephant? Will the world move on so rapidly, in terms of dealing with the environmental disasters that are coming up on us much faster as an international community than we ever thought they were, will the public begin to respond, as they have done so remarkably recently with the ability, almost overnight, to stop using carrier bags. The ability again almost overnight to stop smoking in workplaces and pubs. Are we not going to see supermarkets adopting new protocols about how they receive food into the supermarkets and therefore how far retailers sell products that we will see a rapid falling off in the amount of waste the world is having to deal with? I am confident. I am an optimist. People may accuse me of lacking realism, but I see the signs of a sea change in our attitude to the environment and I want Jersey to be at the forefront of any sea change. We were when we brought in ultra violet treatment for sewage. The Minister mentioned our incinerator as an example of how we were ahead of the game. I am not sure that is correct. We certainly were in our introduction of U.V. (ultra violet) treatment of sewage and people came from far and wide to see what Jersey were doing. I want people to come to Jersey to see how we are managing our waste. They will not come and see our incinerator, I am pretty sure of that, unless the Planning Minister does a superb job which is architectural supremo and people come to admire the architecture of it. But they certainly will not come to admire our treatment of waste if we simply go down the safe and relatively risk-

free route of building this large E.f.W. So, I think in terms of the environment, and I started with the environment because I think the Island is trying to be seen as a major player in the environment. I do not believe that to approve this proposition today is to secure the best environmental option for Jersey. I know some Ministers will have spoken to top dogs in the world of environmental science who will say: "Oh, yes, incineration is the new green way to treat waste." I suppose at the end of the day it comes down to ideology. I, and know a lot of my parishioners, simply do not like the idea of burning something which has value, which has a use. They accept there are all kinds of problems in getting to that use but they are not comfortable with the idea of burning it. So, I have looked at the alternative technologies which I think should be pursued further. I want to deal now with recycling. The Deputy was much kinder to the Parishes' zero waste scheme than he has been in the past. The fact is, and I believe this is understood by Members, that when the Parish set out its zero waste scheme they were not saying that overnight they would achieve zero waste production from these particular homes and indeed to quote from the report we published: "The term zero waste has been adopted by some communities around the world to indicate that they wish to pursue the highest standards of waste minimisation and recycling and indeed zero waste communities are flourishing around the world, particularly in places like New Zealand, which places a high value on its green credentials." The fact is that what we have found, and I know that the same has been found in St. John with their kerb side collection scheme, is that the public are really keen in Jersey to recycle. They are frustrated by the difficulties which beset them when they try to do it. I am convinced that kerb side collection is the way forward, not least because of requiring people to drive to bring banks is in itself a creator of greenhouse gases. Not everyone has access to a car after all, and surely people in today's society have a right to expect an efficient and co-ordinated collection of their recycled waste. However, I think we have to be a little careful here because what the Minister appears to be asking the ratepayers of the Island to do is to pay for kerb side collection, run by their Parishes, but then to pay as taxpayers for what may be an oversized incinerator. Now, I believe that I can persuade my ratepayers, when we have our budget meeting in just over a week's time, that I should indeed invest their money in kerb side collections, but I do not think I can then ask them as taxpayers, and of course many of them are, to foot the bill unless indeed it is a bargain as the Minister says, for this enormous project. Not unless I am satisfied, as a

States Member, this really is in economic terms the best and indeed the only option to the Island. One of the other things that came out of yesterday's meeting with Juniper was several times they referred to themselves as auditors and they said: "We simply have not, as auditors, had enough information to give the green light to this particular capital project." It is after all, and I hope Members will forgive me for emphasising this, an enormous amount of money. It is now over £100 million and that is only the capital cost. That does not include the revenue costs and nor significantly does it include the opportunity cost of the land take at La Collette that it will require. It does not presumably include some of the associated costs either which will be knock-on effects, if we go ahead. I think we know that the public feel hard-pressed at the moment. It is not just our fault. We are to blame as a collective Assembly for G.S.T. (Goods and Services Tax), but it is not our fault that household prices have gone up so high. I have to ask Members whether they can take what I think is tantamount to a cavalier approach to accept the expenditure of well over £100 million at a time of community belt-tightening and, significantly, when the latest consultants to review the financial side, the financial pace, have said they are not yet satisfied. I know I could not go to my ratepayers next week with my accounts if my auditors were not satisfied with the trawl that they have been doing, and are doing, at the moment through Parish accounts and I do not believe we should be going to the public to say: "We want to buy this piece of kit" when the latest analysis is suggesting that there is more work to be done on the cost of this particular solution. So, is it the best economic option for Jersey? It may be, but I do not believe the case has yet been made. We need to see more sums. We need to see more alternative costs. It is all very well for the Minister still keeping a very level, and I hope serene approach to this debate, the Minister was rather dismissive of the latest prices given by Scrutiny in terms of shipping recyclables off Island. He said it is cheaper and wiser to avoid shipping. Well, we recently had a Scrutiny hearing and I

am sure other Scrutiny Members will give more details about this, but in a nutshell what we heard from our carriers who supply our Island with everything that we require coming into it, have an awful lot of empty space going out of it. They are more than willing to work with the States and to find cost-effective solutions that will fill up their space, that will effectively improve their carbon footprint as hauliers, as carriers, and which will allow us to export the recyclables. Members will know that I have recently been talking to a French company about doing just that for the Parish because it is obvious that if we can get our recycled materials baled here and sent over to France to be collected from the quay at Saint-Malo, that is a much shorter journey to undertake than sending them up to the U.K., but I do not think we have begun to explore the potential of exporting our recyclables and I certainly indicated that the Parish of St. Helier, if I have any say in the matter, is going to do this because my conscience will not allow me to send things that can be re-used into the incineration stream. Of course we are talking not just about now with the problems of Bellozanne, and we are all anxious to sort those out, but I am talking about 2011 when this new incinerator is destined to be ready. I do not want to be sending anything to that incinerator, if I am still at the helm of the Parish of St. Helier, that can be re-used and recycled. I think this raises an interesting point which has not yet been touched on by the Minister and perhaps will be picked up on later. There is no contractual obligation for the Parishes to send their waste to the States to process. Now, what that means in my book is that if the Parishes were to decide, if the Constables were to decide collectively that they simply did not believe it was right to be burning cardboard, paper, plastic, and other things which can be reused, tyres .. tyres are still currently being burnt, beds, wood and so on. If the Constables believe that those things should be recycled and they came up with co-ordinated ways of tackling the problem then the question I have for the Minister is: what will you burn in the incinerator in 2011? We could indeed get to the situation in 3 years' time where recycling has become such an important target for the Island, and interestingly of course we know that the political pressure on the Island will increase to move down this road, that we will be left with a wonderfully architectural incinerator at La Collette but with nothing to burn in it. This, for me, is a bit of a nightmare scenario because maybe some of the Ministers supporting this today will not be in the States in 3 years' time, but it is something we are going to have to live with. Are we telling the public we are so confident that in 3 years' time there will be 105,000 tonnes of burnable products; that must mean plastic, cardboard, wood, rubber and so on, old beds, are we so confident there will be 105,000 tonnes to burn? I am not so sure we are and I think Members really need to think hard about what could happen without the contractual obligation. Is the Council of Ministers going to come forward and pass a law that forces the Parishes to take their waste to La Collette? I do not think they will. So, that is my concern and I flag it up for that reason. I think, finally, I am concerned about the lack of public involvement in this process. There has been an enormous amount of P.R. (Public Relations). We have been inundated with high quality printed material and large ring binders that most Members would have needed to come to the States by car today, if they were to carry the weight of reports with them. But the fact is that I do not detect in the public a real buy-in to this particular solution. Of course the public are desperate that we sort out the Bellozanne situation and, of course, the public are desperate to recycle. Those 2 things are givens, to my view, but I do not detect in the public an enormous "yes" to this project. Not only because of the cost, not only because of the environmental doubts people have about burning recyclable products, but because of the location. There is deep concern along the south coast of the Island, not just in St. Helier, but in St. Clement and the other southern Parishes as well. There is deep concern about what this is going to look like and it is perhaps worth concluding with another concern, which I think ties into that, that we have not really ever debated, at least not since I have

been in the States, the future of La Collette and the strategy for material imports was never debated. The future of La Collette could be quite different from what it appears to be today and I know there are people involved in Government, at officer level as well as politicians, who feel that to put in another piece of industrial equipment into La Collette actually seals its fate. It can only ever be then an industrial estate for the next 25 or 30 years, whereas it may be that La Collette has a better future than that. Marine leisure in particular has been suggested. So, I am not just there speaking

for the residents of Havre des Pas, who I am sure will be pleased to hear that the Minister wants to build the hill a bit higher around the incinerator, but I think the question has to be asked, has the public been involved fully enough in discussions about the future of La Collette? Has the public been involved fully enough in discussions about their waste? I do not believe they have and so it is for those reasons; the environmental concerns, the economic concerns, and the lack of public involvement that I cannot support this proposition.

2. Senator F.E. Cohen:

I will not address the main elements of the proposition being debated. I conditioned the "in principle" consent, effectively making it undeliverable until this debate is concluded. Therefore this debate is material to the planning consent and indeed much of the detailing of the design is conditioned, pending the outcome of this debate. Consequently, I will abstain in the vote. I will, however, comment on the architecture. The first design proposal for the Energy from Waste plant I saw was of a curved roof with a steel structure. I accept that any architectural assessment is subjective, but I am afraid I asked T.T.S. to reconsider the architectural principles and deliver a simple design, based on proven successful architecture. The latest design is drawn by Hopkins Architects. The design has evolved from Sir Michael Hopkins' earlier schemes. The evolution of the proposed design began with the Greene King racking plant in Bury St. Edmunds. This won both the R.I.B.A. (Royal Institute of British Architects) National Award for Architecture and the Financial Times Award for Architecture. The principles of the construction are based on Sir Michael Hopkins' Patera Building System. This system is the holder of a structural steel award and an architectural project award. The construction concept was also used in the design of Hopkins' own offices in London. The design of the Energy from Waste building is a simple box with a wrap around steel envelope and glazed gable ends. The roof structure is an express steel lattice frame placed outside the external envelope of the building. This reduces the external mass of the building with consequential savings in materials used. Rather like the Fly Tower for the Glyndeborne Opera House the express structure makes for a far more interesting distant view of the building. Glyndeborne is one of Hopkins' most acclaimed projects and won a R.I.B.A. National Award for Architecture, a Civic Trust Award, and was the Royal Fine Arts Commission Building of the Year. In essence, Hopkins have designed a very simple building, but the refinement of its proportions and detailing will set it apart from normal, mediocre, industrial buildings and give it a dignified architectural bearing which belies its industrial function. Its success will be in its fine detailing. I will be insisting on high quality materials and standards of finish. This will be complemented by a requirement to appoint a leading landscape architect. We cannot pretend that such a building will not change our coastline for ever and it will be seen from afar, however, if we are diligent about the detailing it can be a good building and it has the potential to be an award winner, given the

necessary investment in construction and finishing materials.

3. Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

I think that last speech really demonstrates why it is time that we separated the ministry from Environment and Planning because the Minister is hopelessly tied by his quite right declaration that he is unable to contribute today because of his consideration in the future from the planning side of things. But I would have expected, given the environmental concerns and the environmental health concerns and the  Ramsar  site concerns, that the Minister,  or  at least hopefully the  Assistant Minister, would have prepared a significant contribution for today's debate ..

Senator F.E. Cohen:

If the Deputy would give way for one moment. I did distribute some notes from the Environment Department to States Members only a few days ago.

Deputy P.V.F. Le Claire:

I think we have seen those and we have also seen the Environmental Health Impact Assessment, the second of which has been concluded, which speaks about the health impact to those who will have breathing difficulties in the proposed location and the need for the untested and uncertain emissions from these modern plants that need to be concurrently extremely well monitored and reported upon into the future, so that the communities that are commissioning these plants can have cognisance of the actual harm that they may be emitting into the communities that they will be sited in. In particular, the second Environmental Health Report that has been presented to us recently, another paper, not the one the Minister referred to, does talk about the residents in the vicinity and has been already pointed out by the Officer for Environmental Health for Jersey, the Medical Officer of Health, those people who are in most need of improvements to their health are those residents in St. Helier , who by demographics are surrounded by the main pollutants this Island emits and also by their own socio-demographic positions in terms of financial ability to pay to be healthy, or to afford to be healthy, are less able to look after themselves. So, it has already been identified by the Medical Officer of Health that more needs to be done to support those residents in St. Helier. If I can just stay on the health side of things when I continue. I want to speak in support of a modern gas cleaning plant and its capability of negating concerns for health because it would be remiss of us to try to say for some political reason this morning that this plant is going to be bad for the health of Jersey necessarily. I would just like, to say that I think and I believe that while we have had suggestions only recently that there should be a Ministry for Children, and that has been negated by Senator Walker because we cannot increase ministries, I think the position of new ministries needs to be considered by the States and the allocation of Assistant Ministers' time to head up those new ministries needs to be considered in very short order so that we can employ those more talented Assistant Ministers in meaningful roles within our community, such as the Environment Minister, because I believe that while he is an extremely capable and thoroughly diligent, hardworking Minister for Jersey, Senator Cohen, unfortunately in my personal view, is unable to commit the type of execution that I would like to see him commit into the environment because he is bound by his planning concerns. I scratch my head when I hear him speaking about the merits of a building from an eminent designer when we really want to hear somebody in this position in our Island speaking about the environmental concerns, climate change,  et cetera, because those are all things that the vast majority of people in Jersey are crying out for. If I can proceed to the health issue. As a Deputy for No. 1 District, which La Collette is obviously in, where the plant will be sited if the States agree today, the residents of St. Helier have been complaining, and it has been noted by the Medical Officer of Health, for years about the impacts upon their lives and their living standards and their ability to enjoy their homes because of the industrial emissions from La Collette. Now, the problem with shutting down a process in La Collette has been that we have not been able to source out one emission from another and as there are, and have been, reported leaks of all manners from La Collette into the locations of Havre des Pas and town and into St. Clement's and even as far as Grouville , the environmental health officers are unable to identify and determine the source of the irritation, the source of the smell and the source of the ill health, particularly to a particular process to close that process, or to bring that

process to book, and that is also where and why in the future we need an Environment Minister, because the current fiasco of the Constable of St. Helier trying to close the compost site through the courts and then the Health Ministry saying: "Oh, we will take it forward. It is not our responsibility to say it is okay or not. We will take the Transport and Technical Services Department to court" and then them sitting down together prior to doing that, regardless of the concerns of the people in St. Helier : "Oh, hang on, we do not want to have to pay for all the costs of all this if we lose, so let us just put all that on hold until we have that bit sorted out." It is a nightmare. It does show, in my view, that the States of Jersey are more concerned about protecting the Executive and the costs to the Executive than the people of this Island. Now, on a more positive note. Yesterday, at the meeting for Juniper, I, together with many Members of the States Assembly and the Ministers, heard quite conclusively, contrary to what had been spoken about on the radio which were health concerns, that you can put as much money as you would like into the back end of an incineration

facility and you can capture practically anything and everything that can cause harm to the most reasonable extent. The proposed plant by the Minister for Transport and Technical Services at a cost of £106 million does include flue gas treatment, which the current Bellozanne plant does not have, and a significant portion of the cost of the plant is going to be in capturing the emissions. So, there is no doubt in my mind, as a representative for St. Helier, although I do not wish to have this occurring in La Collette obviously and I do not wish to have it necessarily for Jersey, if it is approved by the Assembly I think, and I believe, that the concerns of the residents that will be affected by this plant will predominantly be to those who have breathing difficulties such as asthma and pre-existing conditions, heavy smokers, et cetera. Those are not my concerns and my words. Those are the concerns and the words of the second environmental health impact paper that was give to us, commissioned by the Waste Strategy Steering Group or the Transport and Technical Services Department. So, those are not my concerns put to Members; those are the concerns of the health professionals. As I said, they needed to be mitigated against into the future but we then must have cognisance of the fact that there will be people who will be affected. This morning we heard about the people that are being affected and I do not think there is one single Member in this Assembly who could stand up and be re-elected, or justify their position in this Assembly, if they believed for one minute that the Bellozanne incinerator should continue operating. That is my strongest belief. I think that most Members would agree with me that the Bellozanne facility should be closed and closed as soon as possible. The likely reality is that will not occur for 3 years; 3 more years of this only failing plant in Europe. Significantly failing plant in Europe, in the words of the Medical Health Officer, in the letter that has just been passed to us: This incinerator is the worst in Europe we are being told. That may not sound very good for Europe, but it certainly is bad news for people living in Jersey and it certainly is bad news when you go to the schools that sit opposite the chimney stacks and you see just how close those schools have been sited by this Assembly to that badly polluting emitter, with the full knowledge that they were siting that school right next to that badly polluting emitter. One scratches one's head. What were the States of Jersey thinking when they sited that school at that location prior to that facility being closed? I have been a couple of times now to the school that sits opposite the Bellozanne Plant, Haute Vallée, and I have been very impressed with the facilities there. I think we can all say that we have been very impressed with the pupils, students, activities and teaching staff there. The only thing that I would say is that I have not been impressed by what they have to look at when they go to school because industrial facilities have an impact upon people when they live near them, and a significant part of their mental health has to be taken into account when one is considering an environmental health impact. What was happening when this decision was made to site the school there? Because these children are going to that school and they are looking across at that chimney as if you could reach out and touch the top of it. Not long ago we had the Assistant Minister for Education, Deputy Fox, talking about ash falling from the chimney on to the students in the playground, obviously causing great concern among the community and it has been driving the desire to site this new plant at La Collette and the constant and continued talk - and that is all it has been - about the emissions of this current facility, has driven into the very hearts of the people that live in those districts and those areas; fear for themselves and fear for their children and we have had representation to the Environment Scrutiny Panel that the emissions from Bellozanne, whether it be sewage, or whether it be the chimney, have caused people to have great, great concern for the welfare of their families and their children and their properties. So, what were the States of Jersey doing? What are the States of Jersey doing to continue to allow this plant to operate until it is crippled, until when, until it collapses in upon itself before they decide to commission money to sort it out? Before they decide to give money to recycling efforts to mitigate some of these conditions? We all saw recently Deputy Ben Fox from St. Helier bringing a proposition to the Assembly to support the great efforts, and I mean great efforts, of the Transport and Technical Services Department in their recycling initiatives and it was not supported by States Members. Did not want to give them the money. No, did not want to give them the money, but will stand up one after the other today and talk to us all about the failing plant and the terrible emissions. We are going to get it until we are sick up to here

today about Bellozanne. We are all sick of Bellozanne, especially those of us that live in town. Those of us that have young families in town. What have the States done about it? They have commissioned studies. They have commissioned in-depth work in looking at the alternatives for the replacement of this plant and had we on the Public Services Committee in 2000 run to the States at that time and said: "We need £60 million for this new plant because it is going to fail in 20 years' time, although it could be failing by 2008." If we had said that in 2000, which we were saying and the officers were saying, we would have been told one thing: "Go away. Put your plans together. Put them before the capital priority projects before the States Assembly. Put them in the Strategic Plan, see if it gets permission. See if we all agree with it. See if you have done your environmental impact assessments yet. Tell me if you have looked at all the alternatives. Then we will decide, as a whole, whether or not it is a thing we want to do with the States money." No. The States do not do that. They do not address the things they need to address. It puts money away in its funds for a rainy day and it meets with its parishioners in its Parishes and keeps the rates down and it mitigates costs here and it mitigates costs there and it scrimps and scrapes its way by, while everything else from its housing stock suffers to its infrastructure on roads, sewers and incinerators collapse. Then those very politicians who still sit in the Chamber today, who are now Ministers and the Council will tell us: "Oh, well, you know, we had no money. Did not want to introduce environmental taxes." Because if they had introduced environmental taxes they acknowledged that they would find it difficult to get G.S.T. through. Now, environmental taxes, everybody thought were a good idea. The vast majority of people thought it was a good idea to charge the polluter. Polluter pays principle. User pays principle. We all thought environmental taxes were a fair cop but, no: "If they just go for environmental taxes we are not going to get G.S.T. through. Let us get G.S.T. through first and then we will bang them on the head with environmental taxes when everything else falls apart in a year or 2 from now." The very beginning words of the Minister's speech were that Members had contrived by their failure to make an executive decision over the years to make this happen. Contrived, yes, but where do you look when something has been