The Zouk power plant on the Kesrouan coast. (Photo archive P.H.B./OLJ)
The management of Électricite du Liban (EDL) issued a statement on Wednesday reaffirming that “the chemicals” stored on the site of the Zouk thermal power plant “are not flammable,” “cannot explode” and “present no danger to public safety.” EDL also denied “rumors” relayed by the media and social networks about “the presence of ammonium nitrate” in the plant.
Contacted, a spokesperson for the public supplier's management referred to a “recurring rumor,” notably taken up by the plant's neighboring municipalities, in particular that of Zouk Mikael (Kesrouan). “There is no particular event that justifies this rumor being revived today,” he added.
EDL recalls that it had already issued the same type of press release on March 24 and April 29, and points out that the authorities and the German company CombiLift, which was also entrusted with the disposal of chemicals in the port of Beirut, where a devastating double explosion involving several tons of ammonium nitrate took place on Aug. 4, 2020, have also inspected the chemicals stored in the oil facilities in Tripoli (North), which have also been at the center of a controversy concerning their dangerousness.
EDL also explained that the chemicals stored at Zouk are used to run the power plant – which has been shut down for some time now for lack of fuel, one of the consequences of the crisis the country has been experiencing since 2019. It assures that they are to be evacuated following an agreement reached on Feb. 11, 2022 with Tecmo, the representative in Lebanon of the German company CombiLift, but that the operation has not yet taken place, following problems in the awarding of the public contract, and a necessary green light from the Ministry of the Environment that has not yet been obtained.
In a letter dated April 18, EDL stated that it had asked the municipality of Zouk Mikael to provide the competent authorities with tangible evidence to substantiate its fears about the hazardous nature of the products stored on the plant site. The public supplier assures us that this request has gone unanswered.
Since the tragedy of August 4, 2020, information about the storage of dangerous products on industrial sites close to large residential areas has regularly come to the fore. Recently, former Environment Minister Wi'am Wahhab declared on X that State Security forces had discovered “dangerous substances in the port of Beirut.” This information has not yet been confirmed.
This article originally appeared in French in L'Orient-Le Jour.