Jackson, Hunt, Hepner seek big backyard in the sky for region's garbage

BCLocal news reporter Jeff Nagel tells us that Delta Mayor Lois Jackson and Tsawwassen Chief Kim Baird are musing about their communities hosting garbage incinerators.

Any wonder we're having trouble at Copenhagen?

Jackson says: "If people find there aren't the concerns that maybe they thought there were, there may be several [cities] that come out to say 'We would like it here.'"

On Chair Jackson's watch, Metro hired a distinguished British tobacco lobbyist (scroll down to read Dr. Bridges' testimony) to reassure us that incinerators are as safe as smoking.

Bridges succeeded in convincing Metro Waste Management Committee Chair Marvin Hunt ("TRASH TALK/Surrey councillor hot for waste-to-energy proposal").

But last Friday Hunt's fellow City Councillor Linda Hepner told the Surrey Now that the garbage incinerator proposed by Hunt in downtown Surrey is "not something I would support."

Even though Councillor Hepner was one of the local politicians sent by Metro Vancouver at taxpayer expense on a junket to Sweden last summer to be wooed by the Swedish incineration industry, she seems to have come home with some qualms.

Hepner wants to ship our garbage to an "out of region" incinerator. Last Friday she insisted that Metro staff put the Gold River proposal on the table for discussion.

But she is forgetting that the atmosphere is everyone's backyard. Once we dump our garbage in the sky, there will be no hiding place.

Pic: Jules Klimaaatblog ~ check this out!

Metro politicians junket to Sweden to be "trained" in incineration

Vancouver Councillor Heather Deal will be one of four Metro politicians sent to Sweden next month to receive training in garbage incineration. This, despite the fact that her Vision Vancouver party took a position opposed to waste incineration in the November civic election.

Joining Deal will be West Van Mayor Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Delta Councillor Scott Hamilton, and Surrey Councillor Linda Hepner, along with 12 other Canadian politicians, presumably from communities like Durham ON where the incinerator industry is trying to drum up business.

The proposal to send Metro politicians on this junket was introduced surreptitiously. It did not appear on the publicly posted agenda of the meeting where it was approved. It was slipped in as an "on-table" item and decided on the spot, without any public discussion.

The committee minutes published a month later (buried in the agenda package for the April committee meeting) suggest that some politicians had reservations about this junket. The minutes record that there was discussion of "whether the benefits of this intensive training is [sic] worth the cost."

Cost? There is no mention in the minutes of how much taxpayers will pay for this trip. It is sure to be higher than the $1500 approved approved a year ago by the Waste Management Committee for Surrey Councillor Marvin Hunt to buy a round of drinks at an incinerator open house in Paris last summer.

Benefits? Is it really the politicians' job to become "trained" in waste technologies? According to the Recycling Council of BC: "Joe Trasolini (Port Moody) said:
“We are poised to spend billions of dollars. Let us be informed.” Trasolini got his intensive training on a junket to Sweden several years ago with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. He's been "pushing" (his word) garbage incineration ever since.

This is a junket, plain and simple. And one intended to push a waste incineration agenda.

If'we're going to send politicians on junkets, why not at least send them to Italy to learn from researcher Enzo Favoino how compost can turn agricultural soils into a carbon sink.

Waste incineration, on the other hand, encourages emission of GHGs, first to produce useless throw-away products and then to pump them up into the sky -- at taxpayer expense.

Pic: Flikr Jonathan Hill