The Old Tallawarra Power Station - by Norman Hodges (Lake Illawarra MAP Project)

MENTOR FILM MAKER: Nick McClaren
SYNOPSIS: Tallawarra Power Station was the last of the gentleman's power stations, but the history of Normans work includes collective action about asbestos exposure and improving safety for workers.
SCRIPT: My background was heavy engineering. I started with the railways in Britain on steam locos. So the boilers were like ?5 with asbestos. So it was something we never thought of. Then I was in shipping and worked in shipyards and you had a lot of asbestos. We used to make snowballs with it and throw it around, cause we were just totally ignorant.
I started in A Station. I applied for a position there as an Operator. And I had to start at the bottom of the pile, so I was classified as a labourer. After I had done all the training I went up to B Station as a salaried Operator.
There was an average of around 550 people working there. Wangi Wangi was the same size. That was built around the same time, about the same period as A Station. They did have stations very similar to that. But they also had a B Station there, which was bigger machines again.
When they closed us these two machines were pretty efficient for their age. We also had about five years worth of coal stockpiled on the stack there.
Most people used to come down here to use it as a stepping stone, especially the B Station. But the number of people that came down then decided the area, the style of living, the cost of living was that much better that they stayed here.
I was always told we were the last of the gentlemen stations. For instance, the managers that we had, up until the last one. They use to wander around and you could talk to them the same as your best mate and everything. There was no formality.
The Baghouse was what we called the fabric filter and all the exhaust gases went through there and they took out all the particles. And the real fine particles were then shaken out of a bag and into a hopper and I dont know whether they bought it or whether they paid them to take it away, but it was an additive with cement for strengthening cement.
Like I said theres an awful lot of nasties around the place and until it was about to close nobody really knew a lot about some of the things they were dealing with, or if the powers that be knew, it was never passed on down the line, and as a consequence things were just buried or dumped wherever it was convenient.
With the power station they have just built, the deal was, the State Government hasnt got the money to do it and they wanted what is called a peak loading station. Now a gas turbine is just like a big aircraft engine, a jet aircraft engine, that they can spool up fairly quickly. So for the peak periods in the morning and the afternoon though these days the peak periods are more or less balancing right out because with computers there is a heavy load on air conditioning.
So the thing about it was that Tru Energy when they signed up all the deals and everything, they took over from Duke and TRX, was that this A Station that has just been built is going to be a peak loading station. But I guarantee you within 12 months that will be a baseload station.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Lake Illawarra
• digital story
• tallawarra
• Power station
• asbestos
• unions
• work

[jazzy4me4eva]

another great/bad part of illawarra history gone