How about some toxic water? Or maybe you’d rather tea – would you like some contaminated sugar in your tea?

Some of you might indeed prefer this option to having to bear the endlessly depressing tales involving Bachoo, Jeetah, Bunwaree and Martin. But don’t let them get to you. They say that one reaps exactly what one sows. And this gives us a perfect entrée en  matière for what is worrying me and should be keeping you awake at night; your water supply and the danger coal burnt by the Independent Power Producers (IPP) represents.

I’d recommend taking some time out of your busy schedule and paying a visit to the Centrale Thermique du Sud (CTDS) in St Aubin. There, you will see mountains of ash (after the coal has been burnt to produce electricity which the CEB, hence you, are buying at a premium rate), just sitting next to the power plant. Next to the mountains of ash is a huge pit that has been dug, creating another mountain of soil at the other end. The ash will be buried in the ground and then the trench will be filled up with the soil. If you can’t be bothered to drive down, have a look at Tuesday’s Osmose where a photo of the ash mountain is published.

Otherwise hurry up and go visit for if you take too long, you’ll reach St Aubin and you’ll only find freshly tilled soil ready for sugar cane cultivation. For the ash would already have been buried. Not hidden, mind. Buried. It’s not hidden and they openly display the ashes because they can. It might interest you to know that Savannah, another IPP belonging to Omnicane, produces 30,000 tons of ashes a year.

But let’s go back to the part where I was telling you that they do it because they can. When public opinion spoke out against the CT power project, we started hearing all the rhetoric about how burning coal to produce energy was OK if necessary precautionary measures were taken.

Except that our track record on precautionary measures to be taken when burning coal is laughable. Omnicane, Alteo and Terra’s EIA conditions allow them to bury their ash, without first protecting the earth by containing the ash in some kind of geo textile material.

Some time back one of our photographers went down south and it was raining; he saw the rain fall into the ash and then carrying it onto the waterways that are numerous in this area.

How about some toxic water, then? Once the earth is stuffed with ash, sugar cane will grow back on it; the very same sugar we are struggling to sell on the world market. Poisoning it is sure going to boost the sales!

But instead of addressing this problem, government is fighting to impose CT power on us. Because hey, the white coal is already polluting the country, what’s wrong with black coal doing the same?

After me the deluge, is that it?