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Doctors against coal power plant

Doctors in Styria’s Voitsberg district have come out against the renovation and new operation of coal-powered power plant Voitsberg III, it emerged today (Mon).

Around 70 doctors have sent a letter to Social Democratic (SPÖ) Styrian Governor Franz Voves announcing their opposition on health and environmental grounds and calling for an environmental impact assessment of the plant.

Provincial authorities had decided at the end of 2009 that renovation and new operation of the plant posed no danger of increased greenhouse gas emissions and such an assessment was not necessary. If it was decided that one was necessary, the plant would need a permit for new operation.

The plant, closed in 2006, belonged to energy provider Verbund but has since been acquired by Austrian industrialist Mirko Kovats’s firm A-Tec.

Voitsberg SPÖ Mayor Ernst Meixner had claimed last autumn that 70 per cent of residents supported the project.

But Meixner said today: "Experts have concluded that no environmental assessment of the project is necessary, but experts can be wrong."

He also criticised A-Tec’s provision of information about the project, claiming that it had unfortunately been less than sufficient. "That, in turn, had raised feelings of insecurity among town residents. We are waiting for a binding, transparent explanation of all foreseen measures," he added.

The doctors also cited the opposition of Egon Marth, the chairman of Graz University’s Hygiene Institute, to the project.

Marth said today: "One must oppose the project on medical and environmental grounds. I understand what the law says, but people would find it unacceptable that a project that would increase emissions of greenhouse gases would be approved in a region that has already suffered environmental degradation."

He suggested an "environmental cluster for alternative sources of energy" as an alternative.

Austrian Times

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