Companies have big plans for Metro's garbage

Rebecca Tebrake
Vancouver Sun
June 26, 2009

One proposal would burn waste in a long-closed pulp mill in Gold River to generate electrical power

As Metro Vancouver inches closer to deciding what to do with its garbage, some of the companies offering potential solutions are doing their best to be noticed.

Today, it's the turn of Covanta Energy and Green Island Energy, two companies that planned to unveil an update of a plan to turn a long-closed pulp mill at Gold River into a garbage incinerator.

They are promising that the plan to burn Metro's garbage in one of Vancouver Island's most depressed regions could create 130 permanent jobs, $30 million in annual economic activity and a $500-million boost during construction.

Covanta wants to convert the Bowater Mill, which closed in 1999, into an incinerator at a cost of up to $550 million.

It would then take 700,000 metric tonnes of Metro Vancouver's garbage a year to the island by barge, burn it and convert it into 90 megawatts of power, said Covanta vice-president Tom Lyons.

The site already has the power lines needed to funnel the energy into the provincial power grid.

Municipalities would have drop off their garbage at the Port of Metro Vancouver.

The proposal is one of dozens that have come forward since Metro Vancouver starting looking at options to deal with the region's solid waste. Today's announcement builds on a proposal made to Metro in 2006 during an earlier search for garbage solutions.

Even though it's working toward a goal of diverting 70 per cent of the material now in the garbage stream, by 2015 the region will still have
1.125 million tonnes of garbage a year to get rid of, Metro spokesman Bill Morrell said.

The Cache Creek landfill, where much of Metro's solid waste now goes, is expected to be full by the end of next year.

Metro Vancouver is looking at eight broad options to deal with solid waste that can't be diverted, including landfills and energy-to-waste facilities such as the Gold River incinerator.

Covanta says it will invest in the Gold River facility only if it scores a contract with Metro. However, Morrell said the region isn't looking at specific proposals right now, but trying to determine in which direction to go.

"There's a lot of good ideas out there," said Morrell. "How applicable [the solutions] all are in our particular situation, that's what the technical people are looking at right now."

But that's not stopping companies in the waste disposal business from blowing their horns.

Meanwhile, Belkorp Industries Inc., an environmental services company that owns Wastech and the Cache Creek landfill, has produced a study saying recycling and composting are the most environmentally friendly way to manage solid waste. Besides the landfill, Belkorp has interests in technology to do that.

The Metro garbage debate is likely to keep raging until September -- when the region releases a draft of its new solid-waste management plan -- and beyond.

Critics such as Monica Kosmak hope the plan won't include incineration plants such as the one proposed at Gold River. "Incinerators emit dioxins, furans, and heavy metals like mercury," said Kosmak, an independent waste consultant. "Those are carcinogens."

Covanta has been fined $68,278 for emissions violations in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

"We are in compliance 99.9 per cent of the time," said Brian Bahor, Covanta's vice-president of sustainability. "Our goal is 100, but it's undeniable that at some points in time you exceed your stack limit."

Covanta said the Gold River facility will be equipped with state-of-the-art emission control systems and will meet or exceed federal and provincial emissions standards.

Kosmak said that doesn't mean much. Standards are set based on the best levels of technology, not safe levels of exposure, she said. As well, chemicals that don't make it out of the smoke stack end up in the fly ash, which has to be buried and can leach into water systems.

rtebrake@vancouversun.com

Posted by Arthur Caldicott on 26 Jun 2009