Too many questions — residents

A proposal to build a waste-to-energy facility on Port Moody’s old land fill site has some residents worried they are guinea pigs for an untested gasification system.

Several told an environmental protection committee Tuesday evening they didn’t want the waste plant in PoMo after listening to a presentation by PlascoEnergy Group president and CEO Rod Bryden.

“There are too many questions, it’s too new a technology,” said former PoMo councillor Jo-Anne Parneta. “It really comes down to the community... and I don’t want to be the first on the block with a new technology.”

Plasco is basing its proposal on an Ottawa test facility that has been operating for about a year but which will only reach normal capacity of 75 tonnes per day in early September.

In the last year the plant has operated for 46 days or 395 hours, processing 875 tonnes of garbage. The longest it ran without interruption was 36 hours, but Bryden said that was due to several technical issues that have since been remedied before the demonstration plant ramps up for September.

Victoria Otton of the Burke Mountain Naturalists Society said while there’s nothing wrong with being on the leading edge of technology she said the Plasco proposal is “the bleeding edge of technology,” and that it’s too premature and theoretical to give it serious consideration for Port Moody.

“The data is based on one-and-a-half days of continuous operation,” she said. “It’s way to early for the city to consider this option. We should wait until there are several years of track record from the Ottawa facility.”

Otton also noted that the Naturalists are opposed in principle to the Plasco facility because it creates a “disincentive” for recycling and will essentially create a market for garbage.

Helen Spiegelman, of Zero Waste Vancouver, said Port Moody needs to ask itself whether it wants to be a major centre for garbage disposal in the region and suggested citizens need to find ways of preventing waste, not managing it.

Former councillor Cynthia van Ginkel said she finds the technology “interesting” but is concerned about the potential smell and doesn’t think the old landfill site is appropriate, given ongoing traffic issues and its proximity to nearby residential areas.

Parneta also raised concerns about an apparent flare stack noted in the engineers’ reports and what it would be used for. In an interview Wednesday Bryden said there is no stack but there is a flare that would be at most 12 feet tall used to flare gases during the plant’s start-up and shut-down.

“A flare is an efficient way of combusting clean gas that’s at least as clean as emissions from the engines,” Bryden said, adding both must meet the same stringent emission standards. (While the Plasco conversion process is closed, creating no emissions, the internal combustion engines creating the power do emit exhaust that Plasco claims are well below international standards.)

Residents need not be concerned about noise from the flare, Bryden added, noting the “loudest sound on the site is the trucks driving in.”

But Parneta also questioned why Tuesday’s meeting was scheduled at a time when many residents are away on holiday. Committees usually take a summer break in August but the EPC’s waste conversion facility task force will hold three more meetings before Labour Day to discuss the waste management situation in Metro Vancouver, identify potential impacts to traffic, noise, odours and air quality and to discuss environmental impacts to the landfill site itself.

Coun. Mike Clay, who chairs the task force, acknowledged the timeline is an aggressive one but said starting in August meant not having to compete with other committee and council meetings.

“This is just the beginning of the process,” he added in an interview Thursday.

Metro Vancouver is currently reviewing its waste management strategy but will require provincial approval to make any changes to it. Clay said Port Moody is investigating the waste-to-energy option now so that the city has a clearer position on the issue if Metro does opt for small-scale facilities scattered throughout the region.

“One good thing about the timing is that it puts this on the map as an election issue if not as a referendum question,” in November, Clay added.

spayne@tricitynews.com