The EIA Report is the most important document prepared by an investor. It’s role is to present an analysis of all the impacts the project in question has on the people and the environment, which is used by competent bodies in the process of issuing an environmental decision for a project. Only if the decision is positive the investor may obtain a building permit.
Elektrownia Północ has already prepared several Reports but they were seriously flawed and the design project of the power plant has changed significantly. The current Report also failed to correct these mistakes.
On February the 6th, 2015 the General Director for Environmental Protection (GDOŚ) annulled part of the environmental decision issued on the basis of the EIA Report thus confirming the objections of NGOs that the sewage water from the power plant would seriously threaten the Vistula River’s ecosystem.
The most up-to-date Report also has manifest errors. The investor drastically underestimated the amount of air pollutants emitted from the power plant. In fact, emissions of dangerous particular matter PM 2.5 will be 20 times higher, emissions of the most toxic heavy metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic, chromium, nickel and cadmium will be 70-150 times higher than it was stated in the Report.
The authors of the Report failed to mention impacts of dangerous substances such as dioxins and furans, and greenhouse gasses such as N2O and methane. They do not give any numbers of emissions of carbon dioxide, even in the chapter on climate impacts of the project.
There has been no assessment of the power plant’s impact on human health, protected wildlife, water resources and precious monuments either. All this makes it impossible to prove that the power plant will have on negative impact on humans and the environment. For this reason a building permit should not have been issued for the Północ Power Plant.