The port industrial area operated by Manila Harbour Centre in the center of Manila’s old business district will hardly qualify as a coal yard that can minimize or control the hazardous impact of the fuel source to the environment.
When mishandled, the tons of coal stored in the port operated by businessman Reghis Romero will emit toxic air, discharge dangerous waste water and produce hazardous solid byproducts.
Critics have every right to accuse Romero of illegally stockpiling “mountains of coal” that pollute the air and waters of Manila Bay in violation of a Supreme Court’s writ protecting the bay. Environment Secretary Ramon Paje also deserves blame for sleeping on the job and allowing Romero’s company to import coal despite the absence of an environmental compliance certificate to stockpile the fuel in the port area.
Manila Harbour Centre may be using its facility as a transshipment point for the eventual delivery of the fuel to small industries other than power plants. Just the same, the company is not equipped to handle nor store coal in the safest manner.
Agham Rep. Angelo Palmones noted that Manila Harbour Centre unloads the coal “using clampshells and through trucks without any protection to control fugitive dust from polluting the air,” adding that it didn’t have sufficient sprinkler systems to control the release of dust particulates and prevent spontaneous combustion.
Mr. Romero should be informed that the modern coal-fired power plants in the Philippines invest a lot of money and build state-of-the-art facilities to properly store coal and mitigate the impact of the fuel to the environment. Team Energy, the biggest operator of coal-fired power plants in the Philippines, for one, has installed an advanced water spray system, dust collectors, an air monitoring station, ash lagoons and waste water treatment plants in its power plants to alleviate possible environmental risks.
The water sprinkling system eliminates coal dust produced at the yard and from truck unloaders, while the sewage treatment plant aims to prevent water pollution. Mr. Romero, in his haste to make money from coal trading, may have omitted the environment and the people living nearby from his equation.
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