Editorial, Brian Lewis, The Province, January 19, 2010
Is Metro Vancou-ver's relentless pursuit of waste-to-energy incinerators within its regional district, as a solution to its waste-disposal dilemma, burning itself out?
It's beginning to look that way, even though a few diehards within Metro's bureaucracy are sticking to this garbage-burning option with fanatic-like fervour.
Regardless, they were dealt a significant setback last week when the B.C. government announced approval of a proposed Cache Creek Landfill Extension Project.
 The expansion of the Cache Creek landfill has stymied garbage incinerator proponents. (Jason Payne, PNG) |
This $100-million initiative adds a 42-hectare extension to the existing Cache Creek Landfill in the B.C. Interior, which has been taking roughly one-third of Metro Vancouver's garbage since 1989.
The existing site is almost at capacity, hence the scramble by Metro to find an alternative disposal solution.
That's how its proposal to utilize modern waste-to-energy technologies originated. These systems incinerate or gasify various waste forms to produce electricity or steam, or both, for use in homes, businesses or industries.
However, proponents and opponents differ significantly on the impacts.
Proponents -- especially the companies that build these technologies and willingly feed the data to Metro in hopes of making multimillion-dollar sales -- maintain there are little or no harmful emissions of any kind.
But opponents hold the opposite view and point out that these high-cost power plants also produce piles of toxic ash which, of course, must be put in a landfill.
The Fraser Valley Regional District and many who live in this tightly confined airshed, where most of our local food is grown, are on the receiving end of Metro's prevailing westerlies and the big-city pollutants that drift into their backyards.
Naturally, they don't want additional nasty gasses or particulates so they were delighted about the Cache Creek extension because it adds 17 to 25 years to that landfill's lifespan.
More to the point, it torches Metro's raison d'etre for garbage incinerators.
Most stakeholders understand that B.C.'s Environment Ministry has worked extra hard to extend Cache Creek's life because it doesn't want to see waste-to-energy plants in the Metro area.
That's not to say dumping Metro's garbage at the Cache Creek landfill is the ideal solution. It's not.
But many feel it's the lesser of two evils.
Nor is it a coincidence that Environment Minister Barry Penner's riding is Chilliwack-Hope and that several other key B.C. government ministers are from Fraser Valley ridings.
But the worst aspect of waste-to-energy, aside from it being a high-cost way to produce electricity, is that it locks a region into continually supplying its garbage as a feedstock for power production rather than recycling all those plastics and other fossil-fuel-based pro ducts that would cut our oil consumption.
As B.C. Recycling Council spokeswoman Mairi Welman told me yesterday, some waste-to-energy plants in Europe are now having to import garbage to keep their power plants operating.
Finally, not only does the B.C. government have to sign off on a new Metro plan that proposes waste-to-energy technology or otherwise, but both the energy and environment ministries must approve a specific technology as "clean and renewable energy" before B.C. Hydro could purchase the electricity.
And there's no guarantee that will happen, says Hydro.
blewis@theprovince.com
© The Province 2010
