We believe that the original site selection process was flawed. Feasibility studies were conducted in the early eighties and they are now outdated and not in step with the current situation. We believe that the area between Port Elizabeth and East London would be a better option than the currently selected site at Thyspunt. Alternatively the Duynefontein/Koeberg site should also be preferred to Thyspunt.Furthermore we at the Alliance believe that the current Draft EIA is a document with a plethora of mistakes and omissions. We believe that we need to do everything in our power to ensure that the document is complete and free of mistakes and that due process must be followed. We demand that a second draft Environmental Impact Assessment be published prior to the final EIA being presented to the relevant authorities. For this reason we have applied for a 90 day extension to the comment period.
The original members of the Thyspunt Alliance are:
St. Francis Bay Residents Association
Cape St. Francis Civics Association
St Francis Kromme Trust
FOSTER
Sea Vista Forum
Supertubes Foundation
FAST
In order to achieve our aims we have established the Thyspunt War Chest under the auspices of the St Francis Residents Association to raise funds for a possible legal challenge. We have retained the services of an environmental lawyer, Mr Cormac Cullinan from Cullinan and Associates to act on our behalf.
The Thyspunt Alliance can best be described as an alliance of like-minded parties who share the same concerns as outlined above. We need to ensure that we engage qualified specialists to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment. We shall endeavour to keep our responses unemotional and factual. The Thyspunt Alliance in no way takes the places of the individual organisations but we do try to ensure that we all work along the same strategy. Every member organisation can nominate a person or persons to attend the various “brain storming” sessions/strategy meetings. We have an e-mail system where we allow everybody to comment before any correspondence are send to either the consultants or the authorities.
At present we are in the process of preparing a letter to the various Ministers and other relevant government departments.
We believe that in this case strength does lie in numbers and it would therefore be an advantage for the cause to have as many of the civil society and business associations to join the Alliance. If your organisation would like to join the Alliance we just need written confirmation that your organisation would like to be part of the Thyspunt Alliance. Please supply the name, e-mail address and mobile number of the person or persons that would like to be your representative. We understand that time is precious and therefore we aim to do most of the communicating via e-mail.
We try to keep meetings down to the bare minimum. Even if you cannot always attend you will be kept in the loop.
Current representatives:
St. Francis Residents Association
Joe Oosthuizen
Mike Simms
Hilton Thorpe
Cape St. Francis Civics
Trudi Malan – (Coordinator)
Renee Royal
St. Francis Kromme Trust
Chris Barett
FOSTER
Richard Cowling
Shirley Cowling
Helmie Tilders (Legal liaison)
Sea Vista Forum
Alwin Malgas
Tobeka Petse
Peet Leen
FAST
Ryan Donnelly
Supertubes Foundation
Cheron Kraak
Tanya Lategan
