MOSSEL BAY NEWS - The Garden Route District Municipality responded to complaints on social media about smoke and soot reportedly emitted by the Nestlé plant in Voorbaai.
In a press release, the district municipality said it became aware of the public's concerns after Mossel Bay Municipality reported the complaints posted on social media.
The district municipality said in a press release: "In terms of current air quality legislation, we are responsible for Industrial Listed Activities (large industries such as PetroSA) and Controlled Emitters (boilers with heat input between 10MW and 50MW).
One of the Nestlé boilers is within the ambit of a controlled emitter, namely one of its coal-fired boilers. We arranged a site visit at Nestlé on Wednesday, 20 March and invited the air quality officers of Mossel Bay Municipality to join the site inspection."
According to the district municipality, the photo taken and posted on social media of the boiler stack has no reference to the precise date and time captured, therefore making it difficult to pinpoint a specific plant upset.
"It must be noted that soot blowing must be done as routine maintenance on any coal-fired boiler.
"Soot blowing is a process whereby steam is blown under high pressure on the internal furnace tubes of a boiler during combustion to prevent plugging of the gas passes and maintain boiler efficiency.
"Air Quality legislation allows for this process, for normally 10 to 14 minutes within an eight-hour production cycle.
Black smoke emissions during small boiler start-up are also permitted but limited to a period of 20 minutes during the start-up process (as per Nestlé's controlled emitter authorisation).
"Therefore it will happen about three times within 24 hours. It might, therefore, happen that visible smoke is eminent during these soot blowing episodes.
It may however not exceed 10 to 14 minutes.
"Nestlé commissioned three multi-cyclone grid arrestors on its boilers to the value of R7 million.
"A multi-cyclone grid arrestor is a mitigation device to capture the particulates in a gas stream before it is emitted through the stack. Since these grid arrestors were installed recently, the visible emissions from the Nestlé stacks have improved significantly.
"The grid arrestors will also ensure the emissions are within the minimum emissions standards set for coal-fired boilers.
We requested Nestlé to independently test its boiler emissions in order for us to determine compliance with their Controlled Emitter Registration.
"The milk powder incident that was mentioned took place during June/July 2018. Since then, no milk powder blow-out took place again. Nestlé wants to prevent such blowouts at all cost as this is actually a loss of product to the value of R50/kg.
"We also requested them to inform the authorities on any plant upsets, so that we at least can inform the public if such events take place.
"We will also conduct ambient particulate matter monitoring at the Nestlé site and we will be communicating with the affected parties in order to place our monitor at their respective sites as well.
"This will give us a clear indication if the South African ambient limits for particulate matter are indeed exceeded.
"It must, however, be noted that there are more industries that could give rise to dust emissions in the same location as the Nestlé plant.
"It is also noteworthy that there is a permanent ambient emissions monitoring station in Mossel Bay and that the results of the station are well within the SA ambient emissions standards. That said, we will definitely intervene if exceedances occur."
The district municipality invited concerned members of the public to contact the District Air Quality office (044 693 0006) regarding any applicable air quality complaint under its jurisdiction during normal office hours.
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