Dust from Port Augusta Power Station: Alinta Energy commits $200-300m to rememediate site

THE remediation of Port Augusta’s decomissioned Northern Power Station will cost $200-300 million and is nearly complete, according to Alinta Energy.

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• Mayor calls for Royal Commission into power plant closure
• Dust clouds cause breathing issues for Port Augusta residents

THE remediation of Port Augusta’s Northern Power Station will cost $200-$300 million and is nearly complete, according to Alinta Energy.

For the first time, the company has revealed the cost following mounting community pressure for more corrective works and State Government intervention.

Alinta Energy chief executive Jeff Dimery told the ABC the remediation works of the defunct coal-fired power station would by fully covered by Flinders Power, an offshoot of the company.

“I’m not sure what the big issue is, but (the budget) is between $200 and $300 million,” Mr Dimery said.

“There is no obligation on taxpayers at all.

“There is enough money there (and) the program is 85 per cent complete.”

The power plant was closed in May 2016 and has since blanketed the town with dust during winds, causing breathing problems, asthma attacks and hospital trips for residents.

A dust storm over Port Augusta.

In a bid for the state’s leaders to take action, residents last month slowed traffic on National Highway 1 to a snail’s pace to protest for the power plant’s urgent remediation.

Residents took their fight to Adelaide in the lead-up to the March state election, affixing statues with dust masks and the message “Hey Jay, stand up for clean air”.

Port Augusta Mayor Sam Johnson said the community still had unanswered questions on whether the $200-$300 million budget “is enough”.

“It’s nice they’ve said that this is the figure, but we want to know what it truly involves, how much has been expended and is it just for Port Augusta or (the) Leigh Creek (coal mine) as well,” Mr Johnson said. “The other big question is: Is it enough?”

Statues including the Rundle Mall pigs were given masks to spread awareness of the issue in Port Augusta.

Mr Johnson said the Environment Protection Authority also had a duty of care to the community, especially after it conceded the large plumes of dust were affecting residents’ health.

“Flinders Power has always said they’d do what the EPA tell them to do and they have, but why aren’t the EPA insisting better outcomes for the people of SA,” he said.

Flinders Power has capped the plant’s 273ha ash dam with a layer of soil and seeded it with plants, but it has failed to solve the dust issues.

Mr Dimery told the ABC they would not irrigate the site as a way to further suppress dust as it was “uneconomic” and natural fauna did not require irrigation.

Residents had raised concerns taxpayers may foot the bill for future clean-ups of the site, once Flinders Power relinquished responsibility.

A Flinders Power spokesman previously told The Advertiser the company would still have responsibilities over the site, even when its EPA licence ceased.