Letter 39: Consultation Report

Re: The amendment to permit application for the Catalyst, Powell River Division consultation report.

Dear Ms. Warriner,
I am writing this in response to a letter I received from Dr. Sarah Barkowski , manager of environmental & quality systems, Catalyst Powell River Division which is itself a response to letters I have written regarding this application. Dr. Barkowski’s letter has not addressed my concerns satisfactorily, nor does the final Environmental Assessment Report produced by Golder & Assoc. show any improvement in the design or safety aspects of the proposed permit amendment.

The Environmental Assessment report is flawed as much by what it omits as by the regulations it alternately adheres to and then dismisses (ie. The Municipal Waste Management Act). Existing and pre-existing landfill problems are not given enough weight. Cumulative impacts are not considered as p.23 states they are outside the scope of the report.

In the Executive Summary under Impact Assessment the report states; “The environmental protection features in the project description, together with the contingency provided by the existing recovery wells, provides confidence that catalyst will be able to control the offsite flow of leachate from the landfill for the protection of human health and the environment” This is a bold and incredulous statement which dismisses the fact that Catalyst currently does not control the escapement of toxic leachate, as evidenced by their own data collected at the mill filter house in Powell Lake and the undisclosed location about 1km. upstream. This consistent showing is in contravention of a pre-existing stop pollution order and should also be enough to deny the application to amend the permit. I have no confidence that Catalyst can control the escapement of toxic leachate into the environment.

I would like to state here that I am in full support of a letter sent to you dated September 28 2007 written by Mr. Dave Harris. There is enough information in his letter, I believe, to cast reasonable doubt on this application and to deny the further dumping of industrial waste at this site. Further to this, I think the size, nature, scope and location of this experiment should be enough to not only deny the permit amendment, but to require that a new permit be applied for the further dumping of industrial waste by Catalyst.

I concur with Mr. Harris that Catalyst should perform a ‘bathtub’ test at the phase 2 landfill prior to further consideration of this permit amendment. This should indicate whether the lined landfill does indeed perform as claimed by the company. As you know there is much information available locally which refutes the company’s claim that its collection system is working as designed.

In my ‘cut and paste’ response from Catalyst, the paragraph headed “Alternate Flyash Use Investigations” opens with these sentences. “Your letter, received March 6 2007, states that mill flyash cannot be used for other purposes due to health reasons. This is not correct.” Yet, section 2.2.2 of the EA reports “In a November 10, 1998 report, Organix concluded that dioxin levels in the flyash are above the levels for use in agriculture land application programs, but if a facility for removing dioxins from flyash were installed, then such a process would make Pacifica’s flyash suitable for land application”. Is there another reason, besides a health reason, that elevated levels of dioxins would make land application unsuitable?

I have promoted the idea of treating the flyash to remove dioxins, as well as to treat the ash to reduce its corrosiveness, to improve the chance of utilizing this material. There are secondary industries which the Catalyst could introduce on existing industrial land they own at the Powell River mill to use this ash if it were treated. The many years they have been talking about doing this and not taking action attests to their level of concern for the environment. The fact that the mini landfill is almost full is not a reason to capitulate to their request for an experimental structure within a residential neighbourhood.

It is clear that mistakes have been made in the past by the former owners of the mill in dumping mill waste without a permit to begin with. The ministry of Environment has also made mistakes. Initially by granting a permit for the landfill site and by allowing the type of material to be found in the phase 1 landfill to be dumped there. I believe the ministry is also complicit in the extent of the toxicity as shown by allowing excesses to the permitted allowable waste to proceed, even as Agra & associates was conducting their investigations into the extent of the pollution leaving the site. The inter office memos I have read dating back to the early 1990’s are extremely disturbing showing the nature, type and complexity of movement of toxic material found in the phase 1 landfill. One memo dated Nov. 13 1992 states that “no further material which may act as future contaminant sources should be deposited at this landfill”. That the ministry has failed to protect the environment in relation to this existing landfill is evidenced by the ashphalt cap, the make up of the phase 1 landfill and the continued presence of pollutants found in Powell Lake.

This site is complex and already in need of remediation. Allowing the permit amendment application currently before you will undoubtedly only complicate an already complicated and dubious landfill. I therefore implore you to deny this application and require the Catalyst Corp. find another solution to their flyash problem. Encourage them to treat the ash so it can be further used and require that they make plans to remediate the highly toxic phase 1 landfill.

Regards,
Peter Tebbutt