Kota Kinabalu: Everybody sighed with great relief when the State Government decided to scrap the RM1 billion 300 megawatt coal-fired power plant at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday.If the decision was otherwise, the long term consequences could be potentially dire for some of Sabah's super forest and marine ecosystems - namely Danum Valley, Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Maliau Basin, possibly Imbak Canyon and Darvel Bay - presently rated as the last remaining pristine marine ecosystem in Sabah.
The problem is the triple toxic aerial, solid and liquid wastes which will eventually attack and degrade these premium biological systems, says Gary Yap, a Tawau based pollution control specialist who was once in the employ of an American company.
The plant was built to burn annually about 1 million tonnes of coal 30pc of which will end up as wastes in the form of toxic ash and sludge which contain some of the most harmful heavy metals like mercury, lead, cyanide etc, Yap noted.
This means every year, it would generate about 300,000 tonnes of toxic wastes.
In the end, it would accumulate millions of tonnes of killer ash and sludge if the plant were to have a life cycle of 75 years.
Where would such a mountain of toxic wastes go? They must be pounded and stored on land.
Again this is a reminder of the environmental and health hazards created by accidental pipe bust and leakage of cooper tailings at Mamut mine and the controversial Lohan tailings dam in Ranau.
Given Sabah's erosive heavy rainfalls and monsoon storms, it will present an ever present risk of a flood of heavy metals leaching into Darvel Bay and poison the whole marine system, Yap warned in an interview with the Daily Express in late 2007.
Not only that, the process of electricity generation in a coal-fired power plant will regularly discharge into the Darvel Bay's mangrove forests millions of tonnes of a toxic bactericide called chlorine oxide - a known killer of micro organisms.
So what will happen to the marine life in Darvel Bay if it becomes a convenient waste dump for an estimated one billion litres of chlorine-oxide laced sea water per year?
A coal-fired power plant sited on the coast risks production of such a huge amount of chlorine-oxide wastes because steam is used to run the turbines that turn the generators to produce electricity.
The turbines are powered by super-heated steam.
Like a car engine, the turbines can overheat and needs water to cool them down.
A 300 megawatt plant may need something like a billion litres of water a year just for cooling purposes, which can be very costly.
So it's not surprising that from a power company's perspective, a seaside site is favoured since hundreds of millions of tonnes of free seawater can be easily sucked in from Darvel Bay to feed it through heat exchangers to cool and prevent the turbines from overheating and then throw the waste water out again into the sea, Yap said.
The problem is, when seawater is used, barnacles tend to grow and stick to steel plates of the heat exchangers and may be internal surfaces of the intake water pipes as well, just as barnacles growing on the external surfaces of ocean going ships, is a common sight.
To prevent or de-clog such unwanted hard shell growths which will disrupt the efficient functioning of the power generating system, chorine - a potent bleaching agent widely used by water department to kill bacteria, is also used here to kill such problematic barnacles before they can even start to cause troubles, according to Gary.
The huge volumes of waste water that come out is chlorine oxide which most likely will be discharged into Darvel Bay and kill marine life in the mangrove forests, sea grass beds, the coral reefs and beyond.
Also, if steam were used to turn the turbines, it must use fresh water but fresh water must first be de-mineralised before it is injected into the boilers, through a now well known process called reverse osmosis.
So about another million litres of fresh water is needed a day to produce the steam.
But solving one problem creates another.
That is, the reverse osmosis system must be regenerated after use by using acid and soda so that it can continue to function well, according to Gary.
Although the public are assured such chemicals are neutralised and harmless before being dumped, Gary says he is not a great fan of such soothsayers who want to project their operations in the best light, knowing Newton's law that matter cannot be destroyed.
The other extreme chemicals that can render great harm to Sabah's terrestrial biological systems are micro particles no one know how to trap and fly freely into the air.
So, Gary says it's not just about the carbon dioxide emission obsession that fuels and contributes to global climate warming but it's about local impacts that are far more sinister.
It was probably Yap's exposition on the local impact that opened many eyes about the potentially serious adverse nature of the project .
Burning coal in such massive quantities will unleash into the air sulphur dioxide and nitric oxide-charged micro particles that are too fine to trap by any modern pollutant scrubbing technology.
These toxic chemicals will escape into the atmosphere and dispersed over great distances and surely and certainly, the forests at its immediate vicinity - Silam Hill forest known amazing but little known sub-alpine characteristics found at a relative low altitude at its peaks because of its proximity to the coast, will be quickly sickened and degraded.
Few members of the public realised the extent of these potential dangers until a surprise local Malaysian veteran pollution control specialist like Gary came out to say on harm's way of these abrasive airborne chemical wastes also include Danum Valley Conservation Area 80 miles inland, the 120,000-ha Tabin Wildlife Reserve forests, Imbak Canyon and Maliau Basin.
There are two potentially very damaging threats here.
One, sulphur dioxide and nitric oxide and ash combined with rainfalls will form acid rains which will destroy the insects like ants, beetles, worms and a whole hosts of friendly bacteria in the forests floors that play vital roles in the nutrient cycles, Yap said.
If that happens, oil palm folks over a large area may soon wonder why their 'golden' crops gradually become sickly.
Secondly, whatever high sounding rhetoric about Sabah's vaunted tropical rainforests and natural forest management may be rendered hollow when 10 to 15 years down the road, these microscopic particles and ash from the plant eventually settle on the forest canopy, blocking out and retarding photosynthesis plants or autotroughs used to manufacture nutritious food for themselves, Yap reckoned.
Meanwhile, Wong Tack, a key Lahad Datu based campaigner against the siting of the coal power plant at Silam, reported that the jubilant "emotion" of the people there was "overwhelming" following the Cabinet's April 2 decision to scrap it.
"The mood in Lahad Datu is very much like first day of New Year," Wong told Daily Express in a faxed message.
"The sense of joy is everywhere. Hundreds of newly signed up Sepa (Sabah Environmental Protection Association) members were SMSing each other with congratulatory notes," reported Wong who head Sepa Lahad Datu.
"My phone has been ringing nonstop and jam packed with messages," he added.
"The decision to scrap the CPP by the Chief Minister opens up a new era for environmental conservation and developmental approach in Sabah," he asserted.
"It signifies a change on political culture and decision making process. The people's voice counts!" Wong enthused.
"For Sepa Lahad Datu Liaison Committee, this is the beginning of our movement. We will tap on this enormous momentum and expand our activities. We are determined to work harder and develop a long term strategy to ensure the God given treasure in our State will be safeguarded and that the Sabah Development Corridor will progress in a sustainable manner," Wong said.
