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FRIDAY, FEB. 24: Four years after BELCo agreed to rethink their 2007 multi-stack central area only generating policy they invited, amid wide publicity and openness, environmentalists and the residents of Pembroke to view their aging plant and to hear their finalized plans for limited new development adjacent to St. John’s Road on land many had considered to be protected from major development following a land swap with Berkeley. 

BELCo promoted future generation facilities at the east and west ends of the island and 20% renewable energy generation by 2020.  They seemed to have listened.  They claimed that they needed Planning Approval by the summer of 2011 to get the first two of the four new engines placed on order so the new North Power Station could be commissioned by 2013.  The plans included a single concrete stack that would also accommodate the second pair of engines around 2017.
 
Although BELCo failed to modify its position of relying on fossil fuels or adequately address resident’s long term health concerns relating to noise, particulate and odour pollution by including stack scrubbers, they presented a convincing case for their proposals and very reluctantly the residents of Pembroke accepted that to ensure power security for all of Bermuda they would again sacrifice their own environment and see built adjacent to St. John’s Road a single large building containing four engines and a single concrete stack to match the existing ones.  BELCo got their approval in May 2011.
 
On 17th February 2012, quietly hidden in the Government notices at the back of the Sun newspaper was an amendment application to change the approved plan.  No advice to residents or environmentalists, no mass advertising campaign just a few lines advising that BELCo wished to radically modify the finalized plans they had so reasonably obtained the reluctant support from the neighbors just one year earlier.  Had the Royal Gazette not printed their article on 22nd February, which merely identified the changes proposed but not the visual impact, many Bermudians and particularly Pembroke residents would be totally unaware of what BELCo were now planning.
 
To possibly save $1.2 million, a drop in the ocean for this development project, BELCo wants to install a fifth engine and add a second stack.  The stacks are smaller in diameter than the single concrete one but are proposed to be constructed out of painted steel, that will corrode, and their placement, when viewed from any direction other than directly from the north or south, will appear as a jointed slab of steel 200 ft high and up to 28 feet wide.  Visually, this will be almost 11 feet wider than the approved concrete stack.
 
Pembroke residents and other concerned Bermudians have until 2nd March to submit objections to the Department of Planning.  I have no objection to the increase from four 18MW engines to five 14.3 MW engines but now wonder how critical BELCo’s summer 2011 decision requirement was, so the 18MW engines could be placed on order.  One also wonders now how ingenuous some senior BELCo engineers and administration were being during their presentations in January 2011.
 
I would hope that both the Royal Gazette and the Sun will publish this letter and undertake their own urgent investigations so the people of Bermuda will know what they will certainly face when looking out of their windows if they do nothing between now and 2nd March 2012.
 

Sincerely,
R. Ian Saunders
Pembroke

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