Loren pushes government-NGO testing of coal power plants

To dispel any doubts on coal-plant test results, cooperation between the government and non-government organizations on a joint emission sampling project has been proposed in the Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda, who heads her own environmental watchdog Luntiang Kalikasan, has directed the National Power Corp., the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and international conservation movement Greenpeace to conduct another round of tests to determine the exact volume of mercury that coal-fired power plants have been releasing.

Legarda issued the order after the three groups gave conflicting reports on the exact amount of mercury released by the plants.

"Has the level of mercury increased because of the operation of the coal-fired plants? What level is the mercury? I cannot accept that there are conflicting findings on the same study," she stressed.

This is just the whole point, there is no single, unified, and definitive study on the perils posed by coal-plants with Napocor and its parent agency, the Department of Energy, saying they are safe, while lawmakers and environmental groups claim they are not.

Even the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, which had earlier conducted separate emissions tests on about half a dozen coal plants, had admitted that it is not well-equipped to monitor, gather, and analyze fly ash samples taken from smoke-stacks of the coal-fired plants either owned by Napocor or its independent power producers.

DENR Environmental Management Bureau director Julian Amador has admitted in a recent magazine interview that they are "not equipped" to "fully monitor" all the emissions of power plants in the country.

Also, while there are installed pollution-control devices in power plants, these are efficient up to a certain particle size only.

All these could mean that findings of a recent onsite testing by DENR-EMB teams of five Luzon-based coal-fired plants could not make an accurate reading of the actual emissions of harmful pollutants.

The DENR embarked on a series of tests on all existing coal-fired power plants in the country, sending out tracking teams to check if emissions exceed standards set by law.

Amador said the EMB, with the support of the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute, closely coordinated with the Department of Health to assess the health implications of the findings and analysis.

The DENR-EMB teams inspected the 300-megawatt plant in Barangay San Rafael, Calaca, Batangas and the 600-MW plant in Barangay Bani, Masinloc, Zambales on Sept. 3; the 433-MW plant in Barangay Cagsiay I, Mauban, Quezon; and the 700-MW plant in Barangay Polo-Ibaba, Pagbilao, Quezon on Sept. 5; and the 1,200-MW plant in Barangay Pangascasan in Sual, Pangasinan on Sept. 9.

Legislators from both chambers of Congress have strongly called for the shutdown of the power plants, alleging that their emission levels exceeded standards set under Republic Act 8749 or the Clean Air Act of 1999.