ESB Irish Multinational Company against environment in Basque Country

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday February 04, 2003 20:00 by GARIKOITZ AZKUNA - ZORNOTZA BIZIRIK garazk at mtc dot maier dot es

Big opposition in the Basque Country to ESB International´s project

Negative factors of the project: -Not necessary -Privatitation of the energy -Attemps to the survival of the European Bison who lives in that area , an animal which is in risk to extinguise in Europe -Increases NOx and COx emisions in the area , does not meet Kioto´s requirements -Oposition of the habitants of Zornotza , showed in the Referendum made last year 14/04/2002 -The area is closed to Urdaibai area which is considered as Reserve of the Biosphere

We are an asociation from the Basque Country working against the instalation of a Plant for Electricity Generation which is going to cause many environmental problems.
-Our Organisation is called ZORNOTZA-BIZIRIK which means ZORNOTZA-ALIVE in basque language (Zornotza is the name of our valley)
-ESB-International wants to establish an Electric Power Generation Plant of 800Mw (Combinate Cicle) with combustion of Methano Gas in our town (Amorebieta-Etxano)
-This is not the only project of this caractheristics planed in our province (Biscay) , another 4 similar projects are planed (some of them already been built) in a very small territory.In total the Basque Country would produce almost 2,7 times more electricity than what we consume.
-In our town and surroundings there is a big opposition to this project during last two years.Many alegations to the project have been presented , 13.000 people signed against it , 5 protest were done (with around 8000 people in each) , a Referendum was organised in April in the town and the 43% of the people able to vote said no to the project
-Nowadays we are defending the result of the Referendum in several institutions (Basque Gevernment, Irish Embassade, ESB Company) and now we like to travel to Ireland to have an interview with somebody of the Irish Government to defend our position as ESB is a public company in Ireland.That´s why we have contacted with you to see whether you could help us in this matter.