plant
Peter Dickson
With the prospect of a nuclear “demonstration plant” in their coastal backyard, so coveted by itinerant surfers, the good citizens of Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp, St Francis Bay, Oyster Bay and Cape St Francis decided it was time for a showdown.
And Eskom switched off. The power parastatal, to the whoops of delight of a unique community anti-nuclear group that has galvanised the coastal resorts into a united front in less than a year, conceded defeat at a press conference in Jeffreys Bay last week.
Eskom environmental and nuclear services manager Tony Stott said the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the Thyspunt development – 22km from Jeffreys Bay, 15km from St Francis Bay and a mere 5km from Oyster Bay – would be shelved for the time being.
Stott said work linked to the project would continue only at Koeberg and was being halted at Thyspunt, which is still owned by Eskom, and at Bantamsklip outside Hermanus in the Western Cape.
Stott said the main reason was Eskom had accepted the benefit of building where there was existing infrastructure, while the development would also need comprehensive government approval in the form of a nuclear licence that was already accorded to Koeberg.
But Eskom was also pushed by people power in the form of the Kouga Anti- Nuclear Group (Kang), a union of the Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp and Cape St Francis town councils, ratepayers, businesses and the Game Management Association that grew out of the small Kouga Nuclear Concern Group formed last year by locals worried about having a potential Chernobyl on their doorsteps.
Jeffreys Bay town secretary Wessels Vlok, who is also Kang’s secretary, said the business community received 3 000 petition signatures alone over December last year while hundreds more were recorded during this year’s annual Shell Festival in April.
By the time Kang and the tiny Jeffreys Bay town council, which already in the middle of last year had rejected Eskom’s Thyspunt structure plan out of hand, were finished conscientising the masses, every resident was solidly behind them.
In the best tradition of power plays, Kang held the petition in abeyance, merely hinting at the existence of its secret weapon waiting in the wings. They didn’t have to produce it, Vlok says. Eskom learnt the hard way, on the street, when 90 people in snap poll of 120 pavement strollers in town one day told them they could dump their nuclear plant in the sea.
But Vlok says Kang, which meets again in October, cannot afford to be complacent.
“We have to decide whether we are going to pursue this on another level now, or are going to relax and rest on our laurels,” Vlok said this week.
“They are not proceeding with the EIA process, but that’s only for the time being. They could still go ahead with it in the future – that is, if there is no resistance.”