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Deadline for pollution action looms |
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Written by Gordon Hoekstra
Citizen staff
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Friday, 03 July 2009 |
More than 30 Prince George facilities that emit air pollutants have been asked by the B.C. Ministry of Environment to provide by next Friday information on actions that are being take, or could be, to reduce emissions during air quality advisories.
The industrial players include pulp mills, sawmills, chemical plants, a wood pellet plant, an oil refinery, asphalt plants and secondary wood manufacturing plants.
Letters from the B.C. Ministry of Environment went out in the first week of June to the companies, a response, in part, to concerns raised during a six-day air quality advisory for high levels of fine particulate air pollution four months ago.
A Prince George air quality advocacy group, the People's Action Committee for Healthy Air, had demanded in February the environment ministry request the plans from industry, a measure that has been part of an airshed management plan since 1998.
Ministry officials said at the time they had approached the issue informally, discussing the need to reduce emissions during air quality advisories, but decided to make a formal request for the plans.
B.C. Environment official Maureen Bilawchuk said Friday she did not believe that any companies had responded yet to the request, and that some had also requested extensions, in part because key personnel were on holidays.
She noted the request for the information was not a requirement, but that depending on whether information is provided and its nature, the ministry could require additional information. "We'll see how we do come (Friday). We'll make a judgment then," said Bilawchuk, the environmental management section head in Prince George.
The request to the companies includes a call to identify key emission sources and fugitive emissions at their facilities. Fugitive emissions include dust from unpaved log yards or roads, for example.
The companies are expected to describe options for emission reductions including switching to cleaner burning fuels like natural gas. Pulp mills, for example, fuel their boilers mainly on sawdust, bark and other wood residue.
Other options include limiting production, staggering production, upgrading pollution control equipment, paving gravel roads and yards to cut down on fugitive emissions or training and awareness initiatives.
The companies are also being asked to assess the feasibility of the options, providing a cost analysis to support their decisions, and identify preferred alternatives to reduce emissions.
Companies are also expected to identify which options have or will be implemented in anticipation of poor air quality episodes, and provide a schedule of when the options will be implemented.
People's Action Committee for Healthy Air president Dave Fuller said it's a good sign the Ministry of Environment is finally moving on the issue. "It's a serious issue in terms of the health of the community. I think we'll probably find there's a bigger correlation between air quality episodes and health," said Fuller.
While there are no rules requiring industry players to reduce emissions during air quality advisories, the city has a bylaw that prohibits the use of wood stoves, except where they are the sole source of heat, during the air pollution alerts.
Prince George has perennially ranked among the top communities in B.C. with the worst levels of fine particulates, considered a health concern because the microscopic particles can penetrate deep into the lungs.
The city normally experiences several air quality advisories a year, four so far this year.
A research study released last year found that pulp mill emissions, mobile sources and wood burning are the major contributors to the smallest fine particulates measured downtown.
A draft of the computer modelling report obtained by The Citizen last fall showed that diesel locomotives, industrial sources like pulp mills and sawmills, commercial sources and on-road dust were the major contributors to fine particulate pollution downtown.
The environment ministry letter to the 33 companies also noted that earlier this year, the Prince George Air Improvement Roundtable -- which includes provincial, city, industry and Northern Health representatives -- reached an agreement on setting reduction targets for fine particulate air pollution.
They are the first goals set for reducing air pollution since the airshed management effort was launched in the mid-1990s in Prince George.
The target calls for the roundtable to work with all fine particulate emission sources to voluntarily reduce emissions that are shown by research to have a significant impact on air quality. Two and five-year reduction targets will be set for significant sources, with a focus on emitters that do not use the best available pollution control technology.
The roundtable also agreed to setting an “aspirational” target of a 40 per cent reduction in all significant sources by 2016.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 03 July 2009 )
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down in southern BC there are also manditory restaraunt recycling programs we even had to get bio-degratable garbage bags which I havent seen up here.....why?