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Home  Air Pollutants Paddy Goggins to Tudor Williams
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Paddy Goggins to Tudor Williams |
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March 30, 2004
Paddy Goggins to Tudor Williams (firm hired to manage public engagement on alternative fuels trial plan)
...would like to let you know that many people outside the Crofton community are interested in this issue."
March 30, 2004
Mr. Williams,
I have visited your website and would like to let you know that many
people outside the Crofton community are interested in this issue.
Adriane Carr, leader of the Green Party of BC also lives in the Georgia
Basin and attended the meeting hosted by CACG. Adriane has told me
about many people dead opposed to regressive industrial practices. The
issue first came to my attention (Norske announcement in 2003) last
year. You only have to consider the interest in the January 20/04
public meeting in Crofton to gauge the public concern and opposition to
Norske's test. There were people there from far and wide.
I live in another Norske community in the Georgia Basin. Several
downsizing and process changes to the mill here have not yet registered
on our ambient air statistics. Overall you can see and smell the
continuing air degradation. Pollution caused illness is not abating.
I am concerned Norske has limited its search for interested parties to
the Crofton area residents and special interest groups, thereby
hobbling your contribution or service.
If you consider the issue, loosely described as a 30 month co-fuelling
test burn to replace a guaranteed supply of natural gas with
other waste materials like scrap tires, scrap railroad ties, and
coal, it is very difficult to see any benefit for anyone. Even Norske
shareholders, who are denied a clear understanding of management
performance without tricksy unsustainable and ill thought out dollar
saving efforts that mask financial understanding.
The outstanding question is why is Norske going around the Georgia
Basin playing one community against another to 'free up' its guaranteed
supply of natural gas? - not what does the public think of a
preposterous notion that Norske has still not defined further than a
bald application to MWLAP.
MWLAP apparently have their own views on the likelihood of Norske
obtaining any permit amendment to test co-fuelling a rustic travelling
grate power boiler with scrap tires and treated wood, and salt laden
bark (with sand and rocks). Coal is another story! When it comes to
trust, why did Norske create a tire fire risk in Crofton by recently
moving scrap tire material there? Did Norske bother to inform anyone?
Did Norske buy this or scrounge it from a dumpsite?
As you may know airborne pollutants can traverse great distances while
retaining there toxic values. Why have you not let the entire Georgia
Basin know about this proposed activity?
If you consider that over 400 interveners participated in the NEB
hearings on the Sumas Energy 2 (SE2) power plant request regarding the
building of an International Power Line (IPL) of 8.5 k in length across
Canadian land, you will see the opposition was really about the air
emissions (there is some interesting law here). The opposition was
aware the SE2 would be a brand new state of the art natural gas
(only) power plant with the most stringent control devices and limits
that would stop the plant cold. Everyone in the Georgia Basin should be
told what Norske is planning on doing. The list of SE2 interveners is
available at the NEB website, you should contact all those people for
opinion (or data).
Norske has not even disclosed where a similarly guaranteed (like the
natural gas) supply line of the scrap tire or treated wood material
might come from. I do not believe there is any cheap available
sufficient scrap tire material or scrap ties to warrant any "test"
about an "ongoing" plan. Try listing the ties on e-bay. Then ask
Norske if they want to compete with a real market price for these great
fence posts and barn foundations. My guess is the ties have value as
they are and can be safely recycled for other appropriate use, not as a
fuel.
As for the scrap tires, Norske should have told you none are available in BC!
Norske has made blatant claims about the 'other Norske communities
tests doing so well' among other things, to the people of Crofton, yet
there is no interest in putting the Norske communities together. This
appears to be a tv military strategy.
Perhaps you do not know this. Perhaps you know it only takes 1
psychologist to change a light bulb, if the light bulb really believes
it should change.
So, am I to assume that you are canvassing the locals to find out what
they think of the current Norske Crofton operation? Is this what you
call "data" or "opinion"? And, why do you want to second guess what was
clear on January 20/04?
If you are seeking input on the locals feelings about the still ill
defined (in all ways) "30 month test" why have you not provided them
with the critical information? You work for Norske and it is Norske
that has all the data! MWLAP does not have the resources to give much
thought or oversight to Norske, apparently. I have been to meetings and
the MWLAP office in Nanaimo and still only have a bald 1 page
application for an amendment to an ancient permit that authorizes
Norske to release pollution into the Georgia Basin airshed.
You will do yourself a disservice if you do no canvass the entire
Norske 'backyard' for opinion (and information). You see, as Norske has
4 mills with 4 separate MWLAP permits to release pollution into the
Georgia Basin airshed, one consideration for MWLAP that could be put
forward by the public could be 1 total for the 4 point sources of
discharge, on a timed limit. This complex source of emissions entirely
attributable to MWLAP permitted discharges by Norske could result in a
total cap that may require ceasing releases simultaneously at all 4
mills when the total is exceeded.
As you may know, this would also give Norske great negotiating position
with the 4 local tax authorities, as the high tax mills could be shut
for further temporary savings. Like the 2 BC resource process industry
corporations with in house electric power producing capabilities
(connected to BC Hydro market grid) have done in the past, when selling
power was more profitable than running the primary operation.
You may not know that the Norske MWLAP permitted pollution release
(discharge) characteristics and quantities differ in each of the 4
mills. The Norske 'tax ratio' (as a % of total) in the 4 communities is
also different. If you bother to ask why you will learn the 2 different
things have similar dimensions. Norske and all previous mill owners
have directly designed the relationships with authority and prevented
any expansion of control over mill activities. My own community has odd
claims embedded into the original amalgamation documents that speak
volumes to this paranoia.
Until an independent reliable analysis of the state of the Georgia
Basin ambient air ( and I can go much farther here) is available and
what is causing the increasing degradation and consequent human and
economic hardship for all the residents is clearly understood by all
the residents in the Georgia Basin, we need to begin reducing permitted
discharges.
I particularly like the story of Norske researching the notion of
washing the salt off the hog fuel so it is suitable to burn with the
other 'test' material. The joke is, here in Powell River Norske said it
had to use scrap tires cause the bark was wet! The fact that the bark
is salty is destroying all Norske boilers, but, where is the truth in
this mess of story?
When any real information is made available and I have a chance to
consider it on my terms I would appreciate the opportunity to comment
on the notion of Norske subverting other adequately managed waste for
cheap fuel.
Yours - Paddy Goggins
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