Will it be the Phurnacite all over again?

Hold on a min here.....

This is a recycling centre isn't it? Not a toxic waste site as suggested?

I think the fact are reading about this the council planners recommended approval as all the statutory consultees like the EA and Welsh Water said its safe - surely they are the ones that would know not jo blogs on the street having a moan? And Welsh Water wouldn't put their name to it unless its was A1 or else they would be in the firering line!

I understand that RCT Planners gave it the thumbs up, so has the National Parks planning committee. They now need an EA license to start work and EA licences for this sort of thing are very well regulated I understand.

Reading this document on the RCT web page "PDF of planning reports" it also says a section 106 has been agreed for water testing to be carried out over and above those needed to ensure no contamination.

If its safe as it must be with all these various tests and bodies agreeing to it, then the 200 jobs are very welcome in this Valley. My concern is that like I did if people when first reading this story think oh god not again, but reading the facts not the hysteria its not as first thought.

Lewis - Your talking rubbish, the hospital site has not be raised up as you suggest! They are in fact going to build an earth bund around the northern side of the site to protect the site over and above the 1 in 100 flood event! The site clearly is not in the 1 in 100 year flood map that the EA have. People like you keep saying its a flood plain, the fact is it has never flooded and since the river was redirected in the 1990's the hospital site now even sits outside the 1 in 100 year major flood.

Funny though how no one at that time from Aberdare way was saying how IN a 1 in 100 year flood the Abernant roundabout would be under about 3 feet of water meaning the hospital would be totally cut off.

The fact is while some decisions are controversial, the planner and experts who look at these issues know far more than the NIMBY's who seem to look for the smallest thing to slag a project off. Again the Houses by ASDA being built were turned down by the council due to traffic concerns but the Assembly approved them, at no time did the EA raise concern when the developer agreed to raise the land to protect it from a 1 in 100 year flood.

Again if there was any knock on down stream the people who would know this is the EA not Joe blogs that just wants to slag everything off.... Ok rant over!

Lewis I have to say I read with interest your posts, sometimes agreeing and sometimes shaking my head! But i have to say you are very fair on here and always willing to debate, I saw some of the posts on here a few years ago and I have to say the debate was awful and I was not suprised that some stopped coming on this site. We can disagree without the slanging matches that use to take place on this site.

Plus if everyone agreed all the time we would have no debate!

I'm sure that this plant is everthing that Rhyfelwr says it is: cutting edge technology and clean as a whistle, but that's how the phurnacite plant started out all those years ago. It too was state of the art, using coal from Cwmaman pit that was the finest anthracite. However, as the years went by and Cwmaman pit closed, coal came from other sources for which the plant was not designed.

The results we all know to our cost; pollution on a scale that today would be unacceptable, coupled with industrial blackmail for the people of Cynon valley who were told that you either have this monster in your midst or you have no jobs.

That's the reson why everyone is so suspicious of this new Ecopark plant at Rhigos. It probably won't turn out like the phurnacite plant at all, but memories are long here, and there's a history of ill health and exploitation going back many a long year.

Those facts must be borne in mind when condemning people for opposition to this new plant. I welcome it, but with reservations, and an open mind about what it may turn out to be twenty or thirty years down the line. After all, when the genie's out of the bottle we all know the havoc it can wreak.

We are right to be wary of this plant, for reasons already stated with regards to the old phurnacite plant. Looking around the world we can also see that oil companies have governments in the palm of their hands and make them dance to the petro-dollar tune. That's why there's an environmental crisis brewing right now off the coast of Louisiana in the USA. There's also another one off the coast of Tasmania in Australia that has not had so much reporting.

Worldwide there are 780 offshore oil platforms, all with the potential to cause environmental catastrophe, that's even without the tar sands in Canada and the oil and gas explorations going on in the Arctic, and possibly Antarctic too if the oil companies have their way.

Having said all that, this plant at Rhigos, though it too may have gained planning permission through pressure upon local authorities, may have its merits. Let's give it the benefit of the doubt for now, and waive our suspicions and memories of past incidences like the phurnacite plant.

There's an incinerator plant at Horsholm in Denmark that is providing residents with heat and electricity, and that gives those residents very little cause for complaint.

Let's now look at the differences between landfill and incineration: For every ton of waste going into landfill we find that the gas given off, if collected and utilised, will give us 65 kW hours of electricity. If incinerated and deployed as energy that same ton of waste will give us 590 kW hours of electricity. CO2 emissions are also substantially cut by incinerators too, along with sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides.

Thus, going on the situation in Horsholm in Denmark, the case for incinerators of this type is made as far as I'm concerned. What needs to be done now as well is that local authorities should issue cash incentives to people to ensure that their waste is collected and taken to the incinerator to be used as fuel.

In that respect we all have an interest in ensuring that the plant works to our mutual benefits, and not just to the benefit of a few company bosses and local planners. It's our environment after all, and if it provides jobs as well, then that's an added bonus and well worth considering.

There is nothing in this world that is 100% certain except death and taxes. No company could ever give you that 100% assurance that the plant will not cause pollution. All they they can offer you is that all measures will be taken to ensure that any pollution is kept to the minimum.

Having said that, the records of various corporates throughout the world and history have shown that there's a blase attitude when profits are at stake. Never mind the Phurnacite plant for now; that's been well debated. Instead, think of Bopal in India and BP's debacle in the Gulf of Mexico right now, and there are many other instances not reported so much that give me little faith in the promises and assurances of corporates and their colluders in government.

The record on corporate negligence is long and bitter. I'm all for jobs and environmental protection, but RCT council's record on the latter is not good. They too of course want jobs, but at what cost? What's the long term prospect for the plant and the health of the people who have to live near it?

Nantgwyddon tip in the Rhondda was eventually closed down after years of fighting by local residents who experienced an above average incidence of birth defects and other strange illnesses that they attributed to the tip. Of course, it can't be proven that the tip was the cause, but since its closure does anyone have any idea whether or not that situation has improved or not?

Similarly with the men who worked at the Phurnacite plant and who also suffered with an above average number of cancers and other diseases, my own father included. At the time we were all assured that the fumes were not injurious to health, but the black and dead trees opposite in Dyffryn woods told a different story.

I often wonder even now how the health of the children in Glenboi junior school was affected by the fumes they were forced to breathe in on a daily basis. I'll bet no long term study has been carried out on them.

Of course, without knowledge we can't make comparisons with the Phurnacite, but my whole point is that when corporates and their government colluders tell me that there's nothing to worry about, I worry and remember the boy who cried wolf.

When you're in a hole the wisest thing to do is to stop digging. I agree totally though that incineration is probably the best way forward on this issue. Methane gas is undoubtedly a menace when it comes to the production of greenhouse gases; up to 30 times more potent than CO2.

My only worry of course is the production of noxious gases that could be thrown into the air by this plant and once again blight the health of Cynon Valley. Naturally, the spectre of the old phurnacite plant is bound to arise. We bore the brunt of the "smokeless" fuel that was sent off to zones in England that did not allow domestic open fires to throw smoke up into their atmosphere.

However, heat from incineration could produce electricity to be fed into the grid and perhaps bring electric bills in RCT down. Even if that is at all feasible it may just be a dream, because as we know from the coal industry in Wales, it wasn't the Welsh who benefitted greatly from their natural resource, but rich coal owners who built themselves huge mansions with lavish lifestyles, and in many cases didn't even live here in the filth that made them rich in the first place.

I'm all for giving this plant the benefit of the doubt for now and to allow it to go ahead. The only problem is that once Pandora has opened the box and released all the ills of the world upon us, it'll be one helluva job to close the lid down again.

Having said that, as russel has already pointed out, if it's that safe and wholesome why can't the plant owners build it in leafy Cheshire or Surrey? Or even better, how about in the middle of that millionaires' paradise Sunningdale?

With the present economic climate I doubt very much that this project will go ahead, unless, as mentioned, private finance is brought to the fore. Pollution will be a problem, no plant is completely safe. Corners may be cut, profits put before safety, just look at BP in the Gulf of Mexico to look at profit before safety.

What worries me is the location. Built on the highest part of the valley any pollution would be carried by the prevailing winds to cover the heads of the Cynon and Taff valleys. A large reservoir is close by that supplies Cynon Valley and I certainly would not trust Welsh Water to come clean, they reckon the pH of water supplied to the valley is 7.4 when it is nearer 6........acidic.

The road infructure is dire, the number of lorries using the A465 would only add to the truely awful accident rate and the roads from the A470 through the valley would bring gridlock at certain times of the day. The site is not viable, there are very good logistical reasons for putting this plant in Cheshire!

I know this has been mentioned about the new hospital site in Mountain Ash being built on a flood plain. Rubbish, that site has never flooded, never likely to.

Hope you're right about the new hospital site, gibbsy, otherwise they'll be using amphibious landing craft as ambulances if the worse case scenario materialises, and they'll probably name it the Jaques Cousteau Memorial Hospital.

One thing that does bother me more than the flooding issue is where all the staff are going to come from. They tell us that there's no money for newly qualified nurses as it is, and staff that leave the NHS are not being replaced as there's nothing in the pot to pay them. Plenty of penpushers and suits mind you, but no real front line staff to care for the sick.