Victory for fish at Polnoc power plant

Dodane: 6-2-2014

Poland’s General Director of Environmental Protection (GDOS) has ruled that an investment in the construction of Poland’s “North” (“Polnoc”)power plant would jeopardize species of fish found in the lower reaches of the Vistula River. The General Director agreed with environmental and nature protection NGOs and affirmed partial invalidity of the plant’s environmental impact assessment permit (EIA).

In August 2013, ClientEarth Poland, EkoKociewie, Association Workshop for All Beings, Greenpeace Poland and WWF Poland submitted a complaint about the environmental impact assessment permit (EIA) for the construction of the “North” power plant (2000 MW) in Rajkowy, Pelplin municipality. The ecologists indicated that the decision of Regional Director of Environmental Protection (RDOS) was inconsistent with the Regulation of the Minister of Environment, dated 4 October 2002. The regulation clearly states that waste discharge cannot raise the water temperature by more than 1,5°C and below 21,5°C. Whereas, at the request of the investor, the Regional Director had agreed to raise the water temperature by 2°C and cross the threshold by 26,5°C.

Radoslaw Slusarczyk, from Association Workshop for All Beings, said: “Implementing the decision of the Regional Director would have irretrievably destroyed wildlife in the Vistula River, in particular the migratory species: Atlantic salmon, sea trout, Atlantic sturgeon and river lamprey”.

In its justification GDOS indicated that the permit for waste discharge, which can change the water temperature below 1,5°C for salmonid fish, was launched without any legal basis. This means that the developer of the project will not be able to cause water temperature to raise above the limit set in the Regulation of Minister of Environment.

Marcin Stoczkiewicz, a senior lawyer at ClientEarth, said: “This decision shows that ecological organization’s intervention is often indispensible. Without NGOs’ application, an administrative organ would never eliminate the obvious infringement and threat to nature”.

Mariusz Zega, WWF Poland, said: ”We are satisfied of GDOS decision related to the North Power Plant. Thanks to it, the potential threat for migratory species of the Vistula River will be eliminated”.

Powered by coal, the 2 GW North power plant is the largest planned investment of its kind in Europe. Owned by Kulczyk Investments, it is to be built in the centre of valuable agricultural land, and the annual CO2 emissions will be 10 million tons. Right from the planning stage, the investment has been seriously flawed and has faced successive successful challenges on environmental and procedural grounds. On the application of ClientEarth, the Minister of the Environment repealed the integrated permit for the project on 15 September 2011, and on the application of ClientEarth and Eko-Kociewie, the Regional Administrative Court in Gdańsk repealed the building permit on 14 February 2012. On 15 March 2013, The General Inspector of Building Control repealed the permit for the construction of the water and sewage management for the North Power Plant.

Contact:
Stowarzyszenie Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot
Radosław Ślusarczyk, Prezes Zarządu PnrWI
tel. (+48) 660 538 329; biuro@pracownia.org.pl
tel./fax: (+48) 33 817 14 68

Ilona Jędrasik ClientEarth media and policy officer
t. +48 22 307 2103
e. ijedrasik@clientearth.org

Read more:

Another setback for giant Polish coal-fired power plant (powerengineeringint.com, 06.02.2014)