Big shake-up on Metro Waste Committee

Today brings yet another sign that Metro's waste plan is off the rails.

Surrey Councillor Marvin Hunt -- the chief champion of incinerators -- was demoted from the chair of the Waste Management Committee. Metro Board Chair Lois Jackson, who makes the appointments, told BC Local News reporter Jeff Nagel: "Marvin's been there for a long time and we've been having some difficulties concluding this file. Maybe some new ideas and a fresh look will assist us."

I don't think Hunt deserves all the blame for the mess we're in. It has been my observation that almost all the Metro Board members have been allowing their staff to lead them deeper and deeper, one breadcrumb at a time, into the dark forest they find themselves in now, with no clear path out. They have assented to a series of staff recommendations that shut off debate and drew needed resources from better courses of action.

And this Board is not alone. For a hundred years elected officials all over North America have been relying on their professional staff for guidance in utility decisions. Like most citizens, politicians have very little understanding of the technical issues around waste management. When I started going to Waste Management Committee meetings, the meetings wrapped up so fast I hardly got a chance to pull out my agenda. All of the staff recommendations were approved essentially without discussion, sometimes bundled together and approved all at once as a "consent agenda."

But things have changed on that committee in the past few years. The meetings can go on for several hours of lively discussion.

My impression is that politicians are beginning to realize that we are in a paradigm shift here. Progressive waste policy is acknowledging that the old solutions have patently failed. Public programs to guarantee convenient removal of anything the resident puts out at the curb, no questions asked, is one of the root causes of our Throw-Away Society. Wasting has become normalized. (Never mind that we produce 13 times more garbage than our grandparents did.)

Ask Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore, who has just been appointed to replace Hunt at the head of the waste committee.

Mayor Moore is taking political heat in his community for scaling back garbage collection to once every two weeks. Quite a few angry citizens feel a sense of entitlement to waste as much as they want. Never mind that PoCo is offering scaled up organics service to compensate for the scaled back garbage service.

This makes Mayor Moore an interesting pick for waste committee chair. He is the one politician in the region who seems ready to spend real political capital helping his community become a leader in the 21st Century Zero Waste approach. Maybe he can build some teamwork on that committee and spread the vision region-wide.

Watershed Sentinel on incinerators

The first instalment of Joyce Nelson's expose of the incinerator industry's shenanigans is running in the current issue of Watershed Sentinel.

It details how the fancy new-generation "waste-to-energy" plants don't make their profits from actually selling energy (few of them have actually managed to produce any energy). Rather, they ensure their profitability by locking municipalities into long-term contracts to supply the facilities with "fuel."

Series author Joyce Nelson quotes Dino Milli, vice-president of Quebec-based Enerkem Inc., chortling to an audience at an incinerator industry conference last summer: "Supply agreements that are fixed and long-term are virtually worth their weight in gold."

Nelson got a media pass to attend last month's national conference of the Canadian Energy from Waste Coalition and she shares further examples of this industry's business model in the next instalment of her 3-part Sentinel series coming out in January.

(That November conference was the same one where Marvin Hunt was scheduled to explain how to overcome public fears about incineration... until his trip was quietly cancelled without explanation).

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!

It's official ~ Metro Vancouver proposes incinerator(s)

Last Friday the Metro regional Board received its staff's proposal for a new solid waste management plan. They will hold a special meeting this Friday to discuss it.

The Plan confirms, in sec. 3.1.2 (a) that: "Metro Vancouver will establish up to 500,000 tonnes per year of new waste-to-energy capacity within the region."

All sorts of things will be burned in Metro's proposed incinerator(s).

Along with regular trash, the Plan proposes, in sec. 3.1.6, to burn "regional utility materials that cannot be recycled." These include "process grit and screenings" from sewage sludge, which can be reasonably expected to contain toxic heavy metals, and "spent activated carbon" from the region's drinking water treatment system. According to a producer of activated carbon filters, activated carbon filters are used to remove the following potential substances from our water: alachlor,atrazine, benzene, carbofuran, carbon tetrachloride, chlorobenzene, 2,4-D dibromochloropropane (DBCP), O, P-dechlorobenzines, forms of dichloroethylens, 1, 2-dechloropropane, cis-1,3-dichloropropylene, toxaphene, chlordane, radon, lindane, simazine, PCB's, toluene, xylenes...

Along with potential health and safety risks, Metro's Plan also promises to undermine our province's Extended Producer Responsiblity (EPR) programs.

Sec. 3.3.4 says Metro will ask the Ministry of Environment to require producers to send their "non-recyclable" products and packaging to Metro's incinerators. The intent of our provincial EPR policy is to encourage producers to design better products and packaging that can be recycled. But Metro's plan will instead open the door to burning the throw-aways instead.

In discussion last Friday, after members of the Board insisted the Plan be "released from closed," Surrey Councillor Marvin Hunt was pushing for a quick approval of the Plan. Other members of the Board, including Richmond Councillor Harold Steves, held off for a more thorough public discussion, especially with people in the Fraser Valley.

That discussion will begin with a Special Meeting of the GVS&DD Board starting at 8:00 am on Friday, December 4th, in the Metro Boardroom, 2nd floor, 4330 Kingsway (Patterson Skytrain Station).

Be there if you can. Politicians always sit up straighter when there are citizens in the room.

Pic: Marvin Hunt, CBC news, June 2008

Is the tide turning against incineration?

This has been a bad week for the world's incinerator salesmen and their local government backers.

On Monday, China's middle class "lodged its first mass challenge against the government by staging an environmental protest" -- against an incinerator.

Yesterday, an alliance of state legislators and environmental groups in Minnesota foiled plans by the county and its incineration contractor to sneak through a 21% expansion of a local garbage incinerator as an "administrative amendment" to their permit. That contractor asking for the expansion is Covanta, the same company that operates Metro's Burnaby incinerator.

The MN Pollution Control Agency also cautioned Covanta they had better comply with the existing permit. Last week Covanta was fined by the state of New Jersey for violating air pollution control standards.

And yesterday in Scotland, "a number of senior politicians, experts and members of the public yesterday spent almost six hours berating Perth and Kinross Council planning officers over the 'catastrophic' decision to grant outline planning consent for a £100 million incinerator close to Perth town centre." (Courier, 25 November). As a result of their efforts, the incinerator plan is now considered "dead in the water."

Metro engineer Ken Carrusca and Surrey Councillor Marvin Hunt were scheduled to be speakers at a major conference on incineration held this week in Toronto, but their names suddenly disappeared from the agenda. They were supposed to talk about "mitigating negative public perception" of garbage incinerators.

Pic: Guardian, November 23, 2009

What does the Cache Creek landfill extension mean?

Once again the province has foiled Metro Vancouver's effort to expand its garbage empire.

Metro has been active for well over a decade trying to build huge new regional garbage disposal facilities, and now twice the province has intervened. It isn't at all clear what the province's motives are.

In June 2005 the EA process to approve the then-GVRD's Ashcroft Landfill was suddenly suspended by the Minister of Sustainable Resource Management George Abbott. GVRD had spent $4.5 million to purchase Ashcroft Ranch and a further $5.5 million on consultants and spin-doctors pushing the project forward.

The official spin on this decision was that the province didn't want to offend First Nations who opposed the project, but the Ministry's Brian Grant had advised in a 2003 letter to the EAO that this project was not approved under the region's 1995 Solid Waste Management Plan.

We were all surprised when Metro suddenly abandoned the Ashcroft project in early 2008 and announced it was planning to build incinerators instead.

No one was madder about that than the City of Vancouver and Wastech Services, who were running profitable landfills serving our region's needs. The City of Vancouver immediately commissioned Deloitte Touche to write a report on the financial impacts on the city if Metro shut down the Burns Bog landfill and Wastech has carried out a very effective behind-the-scenes information campaign against incineration.

A central plank in Metro's garbage empire strategy has been trumping up a "landfill crisis." The fear of being buried under a wall of garbage in 2010 drove the Metro Board to grudgingly approve exporting our surplus garbage to the USA until Metro's new disposal facilities were in place.

This past weekend Environment Minister Barry Penner hinted on CKNW that Wastech's Cache Creek landfill might not close next year as scheduled and yesterday Wastech announced that a 2-year extension of the landfill's permit has been approved by Penner's ministry.

Metro claims to be as furious about this development as they were when the province shut down the Ashcroft project. Speaking after Minister Penner on the CKNW radio show on Saturday, Metro Waste Committee Chair Marvin Hunt asked how the Ministry could reject Ashcroft on the grounds of First Nations objections while approving the Cache Creek extension -- pointing out that the First Nations are just as divided in their opinion about Cache Creek.

Point scored, but it won't win the game for Metro.

Unless what's really going on is some deeper collusion between Metro and the provincial government aimed around their shared vision of garbage-to-energy incineration.

Pic: card tricks

Metro has been misleading the public about its incinerator plans

Tomorrow the new GVS&DD Board will consider a blockbuster report by the "Inquiry Officer" appointed to straighten out the fuss between Metro Vancouver and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority over who gets the Canfor lands.

The two have been fighting over this plum piece of real estate in New Westminster, where Metro is determined ~ it is now on the official record ~ to build a waste-t0-energy incinerator using whatever means it can.

When the Port outbid Metro (offering to pay $10 million more than Metro's offer) Metro resorted to expropriation.

The Port called for an Inquiry into whether Metro was justified in using the "extraordinary and intrusive power" of expropriation.

The Officer appointed to look into the matter found that Metro had submitted conflicting testimony. GVS&DD Commissioner Johnny Carline had stated that Metro planned to build "primarily" a waste to energy incinerator, while Fred Nenninger, the manager in charge of utility planning, said Metro planned to build a whole "panoply" of waste facilities there.

But both admitted that Metro didn't really know for sure what it was going to build there. The Inquiry Officer, Bernd Walter, put it, mildly: “firm plans for all or any of these activities or facilities are not yet finalized, much less approved.”

Walter concluded his report with a recommendation that the GVS&DD go back to the drawing board and figure out what its "evolving plans" are before making a purchase decision.

My question: did anyone tell Marvin Hunt about this?

For months, Hunt has been busy shushing people who claim that Metro is planning to build incinerators. He has been saying that nothing is decided.

But this Inquiry Report makes it clear that Hunt and Carline and the Communications Department at Metro have been intentionally misleading the public. Indeed, we learn in the Report that the GVS&DD Board gave its authorization to go ahead with the purchase for that purpose.

They say justice is blind, but only if they pull the wool over her eyes.

How much is Marvin Hunt prepared to spend on incinerators?

Today Zero Waste Vancouver is beginning a campaign to make waste management an issue in the civic elections.

As a courtesy, we went along to the monthly meeting of the regional Waste Managment Committee to give them a heads-up. They, after all, are the ones on whose watch Metro has made its "commitment" to garbage incineration.

The committee heard an earful today -- and not just from Zero Waste Vancouver.

Lara Tessaro speaking for Ecojustice and the Georgia Strait Alliance, called Metro's draft Liquid Waste Management Plan "fundamentally inappropriate" for backsliding on commitments to get moving on long overdue upgrades to the North Shore sewage treatment plants. In response, the committee spent a lot of time formulating a motion blaming the senior levels of government for not providing funds.

Then Elaine Golds and Jo-Anne Parneta (a self-described "angry voter" and former Port Moody City Councillor) gave a vivid demonstration of how the citizens of Port Moody chased Plasco out of town.

(Their Mayor Joe Trasolini, who had been an outspoken proponent of Plasco, sat silently at the Committee table while they talked.)

Marvin Hunt, Surrey Councillor and chair of the committee, kept interrupting to assure the citizen delegations that we will have plenty of opportunity "next year" to help decide what kind of technology we will use to burn our garbage.

Then, when Parneta mentioned the bylaw decision last April authorizing a quarter-billion dollars in borrowing for waste-to-energy facilities, Hunt gave a long-winded response that ended up: "after all, a quarter-billion won't go very far."

Huh?

These politicians won't shell out to provide minimal sewage treatment -- but money seems to be no object when it comes to burning garbage.

How much is Marvin Hunt prepared to spend on incinerators?

Ask him: "Marvin Hunt" <jmhunt@city.surrey.bc.ca>

Pic: CBC: "Waste-to-energy plans raise concerns..."

Councillor Anton should have been there

A large crowd turned out last night to hear Paul Connett's barnstorming talk in downtown Vancouver. Too bad Vancouver Councillor Suzanne Anton wasn't there.

In a Province article this week, Anton opined that waste-to-energy technology is a "viable solution": "There are miniscule emissions.... they are not like the old incinerators pumping smoke through the Fraser Valley.... New waste-to-energy facilities are light years different from the past. In Europe, they put them in the middle of their towns.... The technologies out there seem to be working."

Surrey Councillor Marvin Hunt was the only regional politician I spotted in the audience and he fielded some questions after the talk. After the meeting he expressed interest in the "Resource Recovery Park" concept that Connett introduced in his talk. (We will be posting Connett's talk on this blog very soon.)

The next event of note is the July 9th meeting of the Metro Vancouver Waste Management Committee, where Zero Waste Vancouver will present a position opposing waste-to-energy incinerators and making recommendations for alternatives. The public is welcome to attend these meetings, which are held at 1:00 pm in the second-floor Boardroom at the Metro Vancouver Headquarters, 4330 Kingsway (Patterson skytrain station).

I will make no posts to this blog until I return from a trip on July 8th.

A junket to look at incinerators in Paris ~ yah, right!

What is it that happens to nice people when they become politicians?

Maybe it's just that their staff put them in awkward positions.

The Metro Vancouver Waste Management Committee is going to consider a report by CAO Johnny Carline that recommends they approve sending their Committee Chair, Marvin Hunt, on a junket to Paris to look at a couple of incinerators.

The visit is hosted by -- who else? -- the "leading waste management company" that owns the incinerators.

The staff report says the company offered to pick up the tab for "incidental expenses" on the trip. Metro Vancouver declined because "the possibility exists that this company may be seeking business with Metro Vancouver in the future," so the company will be limiting its blandishments to "normal hospitality."

Why, I wonder, is Councillor Hunt not heading off to Halifax to take a look at their composting plants? To say nothing of their "Mechanical Biological Treatment" process, installed to prevent the formation of greenhouse gases after the waste is buried?

Which junket do you think would provide more lessons for a sustainable, Zero Waste solution here in the Lower Mainland?