Powell River Peak: Rally opposes landfill plan

Powell River Peak
05/30/2007

Between 200 to 300 people turned out for a rally on Saturday, May 26 in Wildwood to oppose a proposed expansion of Catalyst Paper Corporation's landfill.

Gerry Brach, whose father worked in the mill for 38 years, grew up in the Townsite and has lived in Wildwood since about 1980. Standing under a sign that read "Wildwood we've had our fill," he gave the opening speech at the event which began at James Thomson Elementary School.

"I'm sort of a middle-of-the-road sort of guy," Brach told the crowd. "I like to look for common ground on issues. Unfortunately I haven't seen a lot of common ground so far coming out of Catalyst."

Brach said he was not "anti-Catalyst" and he didn't want to see anybody lose their job. "On the other hand, I want Catalyst to know that the residents of Powell River are concerned and they're not going to jeopardize their health or the health of their children so that Catalyst can save a few dollars here."

Catalyst plans to apply to the province for an amended waste management permit to increase the volume of waste disposed at its Wildwood landfill, from 100,000 cubic metres to 850,000 cubic metres. Catalyst is permitted to deposit 14,000 cubic metres in the landfill annually. It will apply to increase the limit to 25,000 cubic metres to allow it to continue to deposit fly ash from its power boiler.

The mill had been shipping the fly ash to Rabanco in Washington State, which cost the company about $2 million annually. The company has said it can save about $1.5 million a year by depositing the fly ash in its landfill.

The company proposes to expand the landfill by building on top of the active mini-landfill and inactive asphalt-capped landfill at the top of the Wildwood hill. Rather than building outward, the plan is to expand vertically within the existing site's 15-acre (six-hectare) footprint, to a maximum height of 20 metres, which is nine metres below the top of the rock bluff bordering the site.

Brach said opponents of the landfill expansion had a petition signed by more than 1,200 people in Powell River, including 500 people from Wildwood. He also said over 1,200 people had signed an online petition.

"This rally was organized to let Catalyst know that the disposing of industrial waste in any neighbourhood is simply not going to cut it anymore," Brach said. "Catalyst has to come up with a better solution of what to do with that waste. They have to try harder. That's what good neighbours do."

People were not only concerned about the fly ash, Brach said. "We're also concerned about the leachate, the dust and all the hazardous chemicals that have been put in that dump over the years," he said. "The existing landfill needs to be capped and the hazardous material removed. That's the legacy we want to leave our children with. It's a legacy that does not include a toxic waste dump in Wildwood."

Silvaine Zimmerman, Green Party of BC candidate in the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding, also spoke at the rally. She said her solution was not creating fly ash in the first place. "With global warming on the increase, the last thing we want to do is burn stuff, putting carbon dioxide in the air, putting fly ash into more toxic waste dumps, or whatever you want to call those waste dumps, and leaching things that include dioxins and furans into the groundwater that we all depend on, other creatures depend on. As you know, dioxins and furans have no safe levels."

Zimmerman called for no more chlorine-based bleaching of paper in Canada.
Five other people spoke at the rally before the crown marched through the school's yard to King Street and across Highway 101 to the front of the landfill.

Some participants carried signs, including ones that read "Life before profit" and "Powell River peril of the Sunshine Coast."