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Landfill Lobby Trashed Waste-to-Energy Plan

Cache Creek owners argued to province that recycling garbage is more green than burning it, and saves jobs.

By Andrew MacLeod, 22 Sep 2010, TheTyee.ca

Environment Minister Barry Penner

Environment Minister Penner: Reassured landfill owners.

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Long before Metro Vancouver submitted a waste management plan to the provincial government earlier this month, the owners of a landfill near Cache Creek were making sure ministers were hearing the case against incinerating garbage.

"Waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration of one tonne of municipal waste recovers the energy value of one barrel of oil; but recycling a tonne of municipal waste saves the energy value of four barrels of oil," wrote Belkorp Environmental Services Inc. president Ted Rattray in a Dec. 23, 2009 letter to Blair Lekstrom, then energy, mines and petroleum resources minister.

Belkorp has a strong interest in garbage continuing to the dump, rather than being used to produce energy. The company owns and operates the landfill at Cache Creek, which at the time of Rattray's letter was getting full and was slated to close.

Former finance minister Gary Collins is a senior vice president at parent company Belkorp Industries Inc., and Premier Gordon Campbell's former deputy premier, Ken Dobell, is registered to lobby for the company on solid waste management.

(It should be pointed out that waste-to-energy proponents reportedly include Francesco Aquilini, whose companies have made significant donations to the BC Liberals.)

As recently as August, according to a summary from the registrar of lobbyists, Dobell was lobbying the office of the premier and three ministries on Belkorp's behalf "to encourage the development of a policy to guarantee the continued operation of Cache Creek Landfill as a major regional disposal facility."

The government has already approved expanding the landfill, giving it enough space to keep taking Metro Vancouver's garbage for 25 more years, but Belkorp's strategy appears to also involve sidelining Vancouver's other options.

Landfill owner against incineration

"Metro Vancouver is pursuing (waste-to-energy) on an aggressive timeline, without fully addressing significant community concerns, economic and technical concerns," Rattray wrote in his letter to Lekstrom last December, released to The Tyee in response to a freedom of information request.

In particular, he said, there needed to be a discussion of the risk posed to air quality in the region. "We would like to note that there is increasing concern about the health impacts of ultra fine particles, sometimes referred to as nanoparticles, an air pollutant emitted in significant volumes from incinerators," he said.

Rattray wrote that his letter was in response to comments Lekstrom had made to the Zero Waste B.C. website. "We are... most concerned about your statement with respect to the 'benefits' of WTE relative to landfills. You cite the requirement for less land, a reduced potential for water contamination, and lower production of greenhouse gases (GHG)."

KEEPING GARBAGE KEEPS JOBS: PENNER

A B.C. government move to ban the export of garbage appears to have been motivated as a way to avoid losing jobs to Washington state.

The August 2009 throne speech promised that the government would ban the export of B.C.'s garbage and landfill waste, as Metro Vancouver was then considering doing.

More than a year earlier, Environment Minister Barry Penner had mentioned the matter to Belkorp Industries Inc. chairman and CEO Stuart Belkin in a letter released to The Tyee in response to a freedom of information request. A Belkorp company owns and operates a landfill at Cache Creek.

"Mayor Lois Jackson has stated that, as an interim measure, Metro Vancouver will seek provincial authorization to export waste to Washington State," Penner wrote in the April 14, 2008 letter. "The export of waste would mean the loss of B.C. jobs and, as such, is not necessarily the preferred option."

In January, Penner announced he'd approved a 42-hectare expansion to the Cache Creek landfill. -- A.M.

He addressed each of those issues separately. Landfills are subject to provincial regulation to control emissions and water contamination, he said. "Despite extensive investigation, water contamination has not been identified at the Cache Creek landfill."

As for greenhouse gases, he wrote, "A well-operated landfill will produce less GHG than waste-to-energy if the storage of carbon in a landfill is accounted for, as is best practice."

Burning garbage releases more of the gases that contribute to global warming, Rattray wrote. "Along with eliminating valuable materials from the production cycles, WTE converts materials to carbon emissions immediately, at a time when the province's objective is to reduce GHG emissions."

He also noted that keeping the Cache Creek landfill operating would keep needed employment in the Interior town.

Two weeks after Rattray sent his letter, Environment Minister Barry Penner announced he'd approved adding 42 hectares to the dump, extending its life for up to 25 more years.

Province OK with both options

A month later, on Feb. 9, 2010, Lekstrom sent a letter responding to Rattray. While he supported the landfill, he also said well-regulated incinerators were an option.

In April 2009, the province had passed new standards limiting small particulates and "these air quality targets will be taken into account in the consideration of waste discharge permit applications for any new WTE facilities," he wrote.

Lekstrom also countered Rattray's claim that landfills were better for limiting greenhouse gas emissions from municipal solid waste. "The GHG emission impacts from WTE treatment of MSW, compared to disposal in landfills, is a complicated issue," he wrote. "There are a number of analyses of the issue with a wide range of results."

So far, neither appeared to have an advantage, he said. "As work on this issue progresses, it has become apparent that WTE likely does not realize a large GHG emissions advantage over landfills." Any new incinerator would be required to produce zero net GHG emissions, he said.

In the end, he stated support for both incinerators and the Cache Creek landfill.

"The Province's approval on Jan. 6, 2010 of a further extension of the Cache Creek Landfill makes the long-term disposal of Metro Vancouver's waste in a well-designed and extensively monitored landfill a viable alternative to the construction of additional WTE facilities," he wrote.

But his government was also open to incinerators. "The Province considers WTE to be a viable waste disposal option for MSW." Both incinerators and landfills are subject to "appropriate environmental safeguards and monitoring," he noted.

Metro Vancouver has a $30-million-a-year contract to send garbage to Cache Creek until 2016.

On September 1, it submitted a solid waste management plan to the province that found "some kind of waste-to-energy technology was the clear winner and most sustainable option for waste disposal."

Penner has said a decision will take a while so ministry officials can go through the 5,000 pages Metro Vancouver submitted. [Tyee]

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.

6 Comments:

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  • jnewcomb

    1 year ago

    GOLD RIVER WANTS WTE PLANT!

    Hey, if Cache Creek residents and First Nations don't want to take more of Vancouver's solid waste, Gold River on Vancouver Island are really eager to get going with a nice little WTE plant:
    Energy from Waste in Gold River: BC's Renewable Energy Future is Here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4P74Uv5E60

    Don't hold Gold River back! WTE isn't a huge project but will bring some good jobs to a rural area that doesn't have a lot of economic options.

  • Don_EC

    1 year ago

    Waste-to-Energy

    Well, while I don't dispute the matters you raise in your column, it is only part of the story and may lead some readers to believe that the decision-making process is being influenced only by land-fill interests.

    However, as a resident of the Fraser Valley, and as one of the increasing numbers of people who suffer from asthma, there is also a lobby from folks such as myself, to really exercise caution regarding the potential for a waste-to-energy operation in the lower mainland to add additional pollutants (of unknown toxicity) to the air shed load for we who live east of Vancouver proper.

    There are so many sources for the air pollution that affects us, that the notion of adding even more is problematic. And for those of us who have been following this matter, the evidence for dismissing air pollution from waste-to-energy remains unconvincing, regardless of the competing commercial interests of the industrial waste management interests.

  • YCSTS

    1 year ago

    Waste-to-Electricity = A Dumb Idea

    When you consider the stupidity of wasting Carbon to produce Electricity, rather than using the Carbon to produce liquid fuels. Electricity can easily, most cleanly & most cheaply be produced by Nuclear Energy. Then you can use the Carbon Neutral Nuclear Electricity to convert waste Carbon into liquid fuels, with a 100% transfer of the waste carbon to liquid fuel carbon. Then the synthetic liquid fuels can be used to store & supply heat for peak Winter Heating loads & many areas without NG supply and for Transportation Fuels. And waste burning is a major polluter, especially for particulate emissions, no matter that they "claim" they will be "regulated". Better to remove valuable materials from the waste stream before entering the landfills.

    Recognize this, the ONLY Viable, Green Way to produce our Electricity Needs is Nuclear Energy. Existing Hydro is certainly well worth keeping, but new Hydro projects are proving much more expensive and slower to develop and vastly more environmentally destructive than Nuclear Energy. So let's just bite the bullet and get started replacing all our fossil fuel Electricity Production and New Electricity Production with Clean, Green Nuclear Power.

  • plg

    1 year ago

    landfills vs. incineration

    We are left with the idea that there are only two options for dealing with our so called "waste" in Metro Vancouver.

    Waste reduction has always been given lip service by the engineering fraternity lording inside Metro's tower in Burnaby.

    If we are to achieving zero waste it would mean leaving paper and other recyclables out of the landfill and the incinerator.

    If we are to achieve the goal of zero waste what will the incinerator use for fuel?

    Paper products and other combustibles like a few of the plastic products we are able to recycle will reduce the incinerator's fuel supply. So what does a solid waste incinerator require the most to fuel its hungry belly (boiler)? Plastic!

    By building an incinerator are we not prolonging wasteful behaviour by allowing more and more plastic (made from tar sands, offshore and artic oil) to infiltrate our lives?

    Most should now know the pitfalls of landfills. Some items will not break down in a landfill's oxygen and UV deficient buried environmont for more than a hundred thousand years. Now that's some legacy.

    So rather than waste more public money on an expensive engineered solution perhaps governments (who are suppose to represent us) could limit over-packaged consumer goods and encourage citizens to eliminate their use of plastics and other non-recyclables.

    An incinerator is at least a 20 year commitment to more waste rather than zero waste.

  • Swede78

    1 year ago

    Corrections to previous writers

    Don_EC
    - I feel your concern about particulates and harmful emissions. But if a WTE plant(s) is built the one could sincerely hope they would implement the newest technology in cleaning the emissions.
    I come from Sweden and there are several WTE plants in operation and the plants actually have a CO2 deficit emission count. You see, when garbage is put in a landfill, it's broken down by microbes anaerobically and this process creates methane gas (thus the smell). Methane as you perhaps know is 21-times more potent GHG than CO2 and thus it's better to burn than just landfill it.
    This can create jobs, electricity, district energy and revenue for the local governments and in turn lower taxes for you as tax-payer.
    In Sweden a very sophisticated filter is put in place and the regulation being some of the most stringent in the world. So no need to be anti-WTE. Be pro-innovations and technology and trust that skillful engineers can solve this.

    YCSTS - Nuclear is not the solution for everything. I am pro-nuclear if it's done right... but that's not the only solution, there is a need for a more holistic approch.

    My work at the BC Ministry has taught me lots about holistic thinking and the GHG issue and the laws coming in effect in a couple of years when the local governments have to have a 0-carbon region.

  • YCSTS

    1 year ago

    Nuclear is the Solution for AGW & Peak Oil - and it's Proven

    Swede78, it is true that some organic waste does slowly decompose, releasing SOME of it's Carbon as Methane. Most of this is from WET, organic waste, like waste food - which is best composted. Yes you can burn it but you will get at maybe 20% of the Energy Value, due to the need for Water Evaporation. Most organics store Carbon in the Soil for many decades or centuries, whereas burning it releases it IMMEDIATELY. Since the need is for URGENT Immediate GHG emission reductions, burning waste is NOT CO2 NEGATIVE. Also you can biochar organic waste and store it in soil also.

    It is unquestionable, the best way to use waste Carbon is to combine it with Zero Carbon Nuclear Energy to make Carbon Neutral Liquid Fuels. It's a NO-BRAINER.

    As for your Holistic approach, already done for the past 20 yrs in Germany. The results are right here:

    http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/DETPES.pdf

    See the skinny little Red Line - that's Germany's MEGA-EFFORT no-holds-barred Solar & Wind Energy. Tiny compared to their Nuclear NON-EFFORT.

    Look at France's meager effort to replace Oil generated Electricity with Nuclear in the 1980's.

    http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/FRTPES.pdf

    Notice that they replaced half of their total Energy Supply with Nuclear in about 20 yrs, most of it in 12 yrs. This is for a middle wealth nation, with the best health care & social services in the World, one of the most expensive Military's in the World, and during the period improved their Standard of Living & productivity much faster than "holistic" Germany. And all France did was take a run-of-the-mill GenII American Pressurized Light Water Reactor design, standardized and started building. No modern modular construction. No assembly line production. No CAD or CAM. No advanced electronic control systems. No advanced GenIII designs or computer simulations.

    All France has to do now is Electrify Transport, Nuclear Synthetic Fuels, District Heating and/or expand their Nuclear by another 50% over what they already did. And they are a the World's ONLY ZERO CARBON NATION! Pretty simple minded, even without using Modern Construction & Design Methods.

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