By Scott Bevan February 26 2022
FROM the veranda of his Fishing Point home, Ian Conlon can see in the distance milestones of his career.
He can make out the three stacks of the old Wangi power station, where he worked in the late 1970s.And, until a stand of trees grew, he could see the towering twin stacks of Eraring power station.
Ian Conlon was there in 1980, when Australia's largest coal-fired power station was being built close to the western shores of Lake Macquarie, working as a construction foreman, and he returned to Eraring in 1996, remaining until he retired in 2012.
"I loved the joint,I really did," Mr Conlon said. "I thought we looked after it as operators. Everyone was proud to work there."
But those career milestones he can see from his home are shaping up as headstones for an industry that seems to be dying locally.
On February 17, Eraring power station was read its last rites. Origin Energy, the company that bought the plant from the NSW government in 2013, announced it wanted to bring the station's closure forward by seven years, from 2032 to August 2025.
In a statement, Origin's CEO Frank Calabria said the company's proposed exit from its sole coal-fired power station "reflects the continuing, rapid transition of the NEM [National Electricity Market] as we move to cleaner sources of energy".
For many, including the more than 400 employees and contractors who work at the facility,
the news came as a shock. Ian Conlon, who worked for 41 years in the power industry, experienced a different emotion when he heard the announcement.
"I was absolutely disgusted," he said, addingthat before Origin bought the power station, more than a billion dollars had been spent on upgrades and modifications.
"Of all the coal-fired power stations in Australia, it's technically the youngest."
Only a couple of kilometres away from the power station is some of the finest real estate by the lake. Along a stretch known as Simpsons Beach, acreages amble down the slope to the water. On some of those properties, there are reminders of how Eraring used to be, with orchards and food gardens.The predominant zoning here tells you much about the lifestyle: Environmental living.
Terry Pascoe turned up in Eraring almost half a century ago, around the same time the power station builders did, as the massive facility gradually rose from the earth that once sustained dozens of small farms.
For Mr Pascoe,who is the president of the Eraring Residents' Association, the power station has been out of sight behind the trees and mostly out of mind, describing them as "consistently good" neighbours.
"In terms of the people who live in Eraring, the closure of the power station will not have any direct effect on our lifestyle, provided they remediate the inlet and outlet channels," he said. "If they were allowed to just rot, that would be a disaster."
The outlet channel, near the Eraring waterfront properties, carries warm water that has been used in the station's cooling process into Myuna Bay. Anglers can be usually found near the canal mouth, for the warmer water attracts fish. Yet it's not the impact on catching a fish that has some concerned about what will happen when warm water stops flowing out of the canal.
When long-time Dora Creek resident Lee Rogers heard the station was to close in 2025, her reaction was, "Wow! Yay! But ...". One of the "buts" revolved around the channel.
"There's a whole ecosystem that's been created because of the warmer water, so if that outlet is just stopped, what happens to that ecosystem that has been built up over the decades?," Ms Rogers asked.
What has also built up is coal ash, about 35 million tonnes of it, according to the Hunter Community Environment Centre. Eraring's ash is stored in a dam just beyond Myuna Bay. The threat of that dam being damaged in an earthquake led to the abrupt and controversial closure of the local sport and recreation centre in 2019. As Ms Rogers, who is a member of the environmental group the Coal-Ash Community Alliance, argues, closing the power station won't remove a problem that will continue to impact on life around, and in, the lake. Covering the dam, she says, won't be enough.
"If it's going to be prettied up, there will be a toxic wasteland under there," she said. Ingrid Schraner, the alliance's research coordinator, warns that what leaches out of the ash, including heavy metals, has already led to dietary advice about consuming fish and crustaceans caught in the lake. If the dam isn't dealt with, Dr Schraner believes, it could poison the very future of the lake.
"If anything happens to the dam wall, the lake is stuffed basically," she said. Rather than covering the dam, the ash could be used, reducing an environmental problem and creating a new source of jobs on the site, asserted Dr Schraner, an economist. The ash could be used in construction materials, including structural lightweight aggregate concrete. "It's a transition into doing something with the ash and the labour power and skill we have here already," she said. "You can build a whole industry."
Transition. It's a word frequently uttered around western Lake Macquarie since the Eraring announcement. To see into the future of what impact Eraring's closure might have, retired power industry worker Ian Conlon says we can reference the past. This week, he stood at the gates of the long-decommissioned Wangi power station with a former colleague, Sharyn Thomas, who worked here for 11 years until it closed in 1986.
This place generated not just electricity but also a community's development. "That's when Wangi grew; a lot of people moved to Wangi to get a job," Ms Thomas said. "As a local, it was quite devastating when we found out it was going to close." As she gazed at her former workplace, now dilapidated and tattooed with graffiti, she muttered, "I think it's very sad to look at."
"It demonstrates the demise of what used to be a public asset," Ian Conlon added. Both hope the building, which is in private hands and for sale, will be converted into a community and tourist facility, to help chart a new path for the lake's western side. "We have potential for great tourism, but ... we need more holiday accommodation," said Mr Conlon, who operates Rathmines Hire Cars and Transport.
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