Heritage Cases

The station applied for, and obtained, an Integrated Environmental Authorisation (IEA), 14/12/16/3/3/3/52 & DEA/EIA/0001416/2012, issued DEA on 19 October 2015. Subsequent to this authorisation, the station applied for a four-year Exemption from installing the required liner (a Class C liner), as a means to allow station ashing operations to continue while the required designs of the Class C liner were being developed, and to allow its installation. To inform the Exemption application process, an equivalent footprint (area) for the four-year Exemption was estimated to be 54ha and was assessed and motivated by an independent Environmental Consultant and supporting Specialists. The DEA granted the four-year Exemption on 05 May 2016, and it had some conditions. The Exemption period lapses on 04 May 2020. Parallel to ashing on the area under the Exemption, developmental work was executed for the Class C liner for the Ash Disposal Facility. In 2018, Tutuka realised that the 54 ha approved under the Exemption would not be fully utilised at the end of the four-year Exemption period, and a process to determine the most feasible option to manage this usage gap was undertaken, whereby a few alternative strategies were assessed. Through the assessment process a decision was made that the most feasible option was to apply for an extension of the Exemption period, without extending the area under the Exemption. To execute this strategy, Eskom undertook a Part 1 amendment process in November 2018, but the DEA rejected that application (dated 09 January 2019) and required that a Part 2 amendment process be undertaken instead (which is the subject of this authorisation). Note: The referred project has no Case ID and/or Reference No. hence having opened a new case. Should there be more information received to this nature, then the case details will further be provided.