By Jennifer Feinberg

Black Press

The battle lines over garbage are starting to form, with incineration going up against landfills last week at a regional forum in Chilliwack.

Metro Vancouver reps came to town to share what they discovered about all of the waste management options they’re looking at to deal with the tonnes of trash that can’t be recycled.

A panel of experts armed with studies and charts joined Metro Vancouver and City of Vancouver officials at the head table to present results of their research odyssey toward a zero-waste policy.

Metro reps said they were not advocating one option over another, despite their presentation pointing to waste-to-energy (WTE) with intensified recycling, as preferable to the alternatives in several respects.

Some of the Metro data showed that WTE is cheaper in the long run, due to the energy recovery component, and that pollution emissions in the Lower Fraser air shed would be the same or even lower than they are now.

A video presentation of EU toxicologist Jim Bridges said a “well-managed” incinerator plant meeting current standards, shouldn’t pose a health risk to the general population.

The crowd was told they could inhale more dioxins watching fireworks or hanging around a barbecue than they would living near an incinerator.

“Our purpose here is not to advocate, but to give out the information we were ordered to find,” said Marvin Hunt, chair of Metro’s waste management committee. “We’re not here to promote anything.”

But the reaction of several people who’d been listening intently during the two-hour-plus session at the Coast Chilliwack Hotel made it crystal clear they weren’t buying the objectivity argument.

FVRD environment committee member Ken Schwarzle asked if the Metro committee was willing to meet with experts who had a “different perspective” than one favouring WTE as the way to go. He also asked why Metro has 27 air quality monitoring stations with only four in the Fraser Valley, and was told that new equipment was forthcoming.

Tyrone McNeil of the Sto:lo Tribal Council said he had trouble accepting the stated claim that Metro was not already promoting waste-to-energy, also known as incineration.

“That’s not what I’m hearing,” McNeil told the panel. “I’m hearing you sell waste-to-energy, full stop.

But Hunt clarified the next time Metro Vancouver came to Chilliwack, it would be with the draft waste management plan in hand with preferred options in place. If the draft plan is approved by Metro between now and Christmas, they’d be returning next year to discuss the various technologies.

But FVRD director of planner Hugh Sloan stressed it would be too late to weigh the various methods then.

“I think we all appreciate the great amount of work, and we realize the dedication and hard work that’s gone into this,” he said. “But I hope you can accept that we don’t find your comments either unbiased or objective.”

If one believes the recent public opinion poll, Lower Mainlanders clearly do not want incineration, he said.

Sloan asked the Metro panel if their experts would be willing to have their results debated in a forum with those with contrasting views.

Some members of the audience said they were happy to see the European ways of dealing with waste being studied, and another wanted to know if any other methods other than WTE or landfills were being looked at.