Carline still pushing incinerators down the Fraser Valley's throat

Even as spring breaks out all over, with food scrap composting programs blooming across the Lower Mainland, I am told that Metro Vancouver CAO Johnny Carline is still fanning the flames of incineration, slandering the science that questions the rationality of burning the furniture to heat the house.

Here's what the legendary Paul Connett, slayer of dragons across the world, says about how to beat incinerators:

"In our experience you don't beat incinerators with lawyers or experts but by mobilizing the public to put excruciating pressure on your politicians. This approach has served us well from the USA to China. I like to say in my presentations that 'effecting change is like driving a nail through a piece of wood, experts can sharpen the nail but you need the weight of public opinion to drive the nail home'."

Right now, Carline is organizing a campaign to put excruciating pressure on Abbotsford Councillor Patricia Ross, the Chair of the Fraser Valley Regional District, who has been fighting for clean air in the Valley for a decade - first against the Sumas 2 burner and now against Metro's incinerators. Send her a quick email of support: patiross@shaw.ca

Pic: Councillor Ross in Grist Magazine, August 2001

Paul Connett Tuesday afternoon

If you're in town and want to relax with an interesting visitor next Tuesday afternoon, drop in to the SPEC Meeting Room. We'll have refreshments and a very stimulating discussion:

WHAT: briefing meeting for community activists to meet with a legendary environmental activist.

WHO: Dr. Paul Connett is a tenured professor of Chemistry from New York and Executive Director of the American Environmental Health Studies Project. During the 1980s and 1990s, Connett helped citizens across North America to block dozens of proposed waste incinerators. His Waste Not newsletter provided factual information to counter misinformation from incinerator salesmen.

Today, the incineration industry is on the march again, and Connett is responding by forming a new network to block the expansion of waste incineration and steer us on the road to Zero Waste.

WHERE: SPEC Meeting Room, 2150 Maple Street

WHEN: Tuesday, August 18, 2:00 pm

See you there!

Here we come, Covanta!

In the 1980s a powerful North American incinerator industry was hog-tied by local citizens groups.

Elected politicians in dozens of local communities were nodding in a torpor ~ a state of altered consciousness induced by the empty promises of incinerator salesmen. They were about to sign contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars that would have shackled the communities with debt (to say nothing of the unmeasurable impacts on their health and safety).

But in one community after another, citizens managed to snap their Mayors and Councillors out of their trance just in time. Over 250 waste incinerator projects across North America were cancelled between 1985 and 1995.

The citizens were successful because of a crackling information network that connected local communities together and dispensed the magic weapons they needed -- facts and figures that could dispell the misinformation from the incinerator salesmen and release their politicians from their daze.

That movement was led in large part by Paul Connett, who will be stopping through Vancouver next week. Connett is coming to BC to help the Interior community of Christina Lake. They need to talk some sense into the Kootenay Boundary Regional District Board, which will shortly be considering a proposal to burn petroleum waste from California in that bucolic corner of the province.

Connett says that the incinerator industry has risen from the ashes of its 1980s defeat, and in response he is pulling together a new citizens' movement to defeat it again.

The focus of the new campaign will be a company called Covanta Energy, which he describes as "a giant octopus." Like a lot of companies in the garbage industry, Covanta's strategy is acquisition. They grow by taking over other companies and then spreading into new communities.

We will be Ground Zero for a Covanta campaign. The company is taking over Veolia, who currently run Metro Vancouver's Burnaby incinerator. And they are also pitching a proposal to politicians to rescue the community of Gold River from economic ruin by building a big garbage incinerator.

Pic: Myzerowaste.com

Waking up the citizens

It was standing room only at the church hall in New Westminster last night when Paul Connett gave a rousing hour-long speech about waste incineration.

You could have heard a pin drop in the audience during Connett's slide show. He covered the reasons we need to take a "front end" approach to our waste problem rather than wasting money and time on "back end" facilities that destroy resources.

Four of New Westminster's six city councillors took the time to attend the session. It will be interesting to see how many members of the Metro Waste Management Committee are in the Coast Plaza Ballroom tonight.

Zero Waste Vancouver sent two notices of the event to the elected leaders who sit on the Metro Waste Management Committee. Burnaby Councillor Dan Johnston sent regrets due to a prior commitment, saying "I am not sure whether I am pro or con on the issue of Waste to energy."

Johnston is a thoughtful politician who has made good contributions to the Waste Committee's work (we have him to thank that Metro has budgeted funds for composting this year -- he caught the omission last November).

However, it is getting late in the day for elected politicians to demur on this issue. After all, they approved the "Strategy for Updating the Solid Waste Management Plan" as well as the borrowing bylaw that authorizes borrowing of a quarter billion dollars for waste to energy (identified as a "Major Capital Project").

Tonight Zero Waste Vancouver will formally launch a campaign to prevent the Metro incinerators from going ahead. We will be seeking support from citizens in the region when we appear as a delegation to the Waste Management Committee on July 9th to state our position opposing the incineration plants and presenting recommendations for alternatives.