Details of the conditional approval for the environmental impact assessment (EIA) report on the RM1.5 billion incinerator in Broga, near Semenyih, will be announced soon by the project's steering committee, Housing and Local Government Minister Ong Ka Ting said today.

Confirming that the controversial project's EIA report had been granted conditional approval on May 28 despite strong protests, Ong said the ministry's chief secretary, Lokman Hakim, who chairs the steering committee, would be releasing the details.

When pressed for an exact date as to when this will happen, Ong said he (Lokman) would be providing an explanation 'very soon'.

"I am not saying that I don't know (about the details), but this thing has to be very precise, so I don't want to make general statements," he told reporters after attending the swearing-in ceremony for members of the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall's new committee in Kuala Lumpur.

Lokman could not be reached for comment though officials at the ministry told malaysiakini that the chief secretary was expected to release a media statement 'later today'.

Yesterday, Department of Environment (DOE) director-general Rosnani Ibrahim, during a dialogue with some 20-odd Broga residents in Putrajaya, disclosed that the proposed incinerator project's EIA report had been granted a conditional approval by the DOE.

She refused to disclose the conditions of the approval saying they could only be obtained from ministry officials. The ministry is the proponent of the project.

Health risks

The controversy-ridden project continues to face resistance from local and international environmental activists and anti-incineration advocates who argue that the government should implement better alternatives for its waste management programme.

Residents in Broga and Semenyih have claimed that the incinerator operations will be hazardous to their health and environment. They have also pointed out that plant is to be situated within a gazetted water catchment area.

The government, meanwhile, is pushing for the 1,500-tonne plant to come online in 2007.

The plant will use what the government claims to be Japan's latest 'zero emission fluidised-bed and ash-melting technology'.

The Semenyih/Broga No Incinerator pro-tem action committee, a group of locals firmly opposed to the mega project, say they suspect a hidden agenda behind the government's insistence in pushing ahead despite persistent public protests.

They have also questioned on the track record of Ebara Corporation , the Japanese engineering giant hired to design and build the incinerator.

The incinerator was initially proposed to be located at Puchong, also in Selangor, but was later moved to sparsely populated Broga after intense opposition by residents at the former.