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Numerous demands for more assessment of sludge incinerator
February 7, 2006
A private proposal to burn sewage sludge in east Hamilton is facing multiple demands for a much more thorough environmental review. At least four local organizations, an MPP, city council, an air pollution scientist and several other individuals have formally asked the province to require the Liberty Energy proposal for a gasification facility on Strathearne Avenue to undergo a full environmental assessment.
McMaster air quality expert David Pengelly and Hamilton East MPP Andrea Horwath have joined the Hamilton Beach Preservation Committee, Environment Hamilton, Community Action Parkdale East (CAPE) and the city's Waste Reduction Task Force in sending letters to the Ministry of the Environment arguing that Liberty's environmental screening report is not sufficient.
Waste management facilities are normally subject to a full assessment. That's the process being followed by Hamilton and the region of Niagara as they explore ways to deal with municipal garbage that can't be recycled or composted. But Liberty dodged this requirement by describing their facility as a "renewable energy power plant" and taking advantage of much more lenient provincial rules for evaluating 'green' electricity projects. Liberty says its facility will produce 10 megawatts (Mw) of power - enough for about 8000 homes.
Dr Pengelly challenges this directly in his letter to the Minister of the Environment: "This rationale does not stand up to close scrutiny, when one considers that they are installing cooling towers to get rid of 53.2 Mw of waste heat, but their generators have a total capacity of 10 Mw. Thus less than one-fifth of the energy output of the process gets converted to electricity. We could get 10 Mw of electrical power for Hamilton from almost any other source with far less pollution."
Air pollution is Pengelly's main concern, including chemicals that may contaminate the sewage and waste wood which comprise the feedstock for the facility. He points to recent studies for Hamilton and Toronto which show significant health problems from oxides of nitrogen. "The NOx pollution introduced by this proposed facility is a matter of urgent public health concern" he declares, especially in light of the fact that "the Ontario air quality objectives for NO2 are based on scientific data that are 30 years old, and are not now protective of health."
The Hamilton beach community lies immediately downwind of the proposed sludge incinerator and most of the city's heavy industrial zone, so air pollution is also at the top of their list of concerns. They note the company has been required to report their expected air pollutants to federal regulators because of their potential to increase air pollution travelling to the United States. "If the emissions are significant enough to post them with the Canada-USA Air Quality Agreement, then shouldn't the citizens of Hamilton get the same reassurance with a full environmental assessment?" the beach group asks in their letter.
The group also points to the massive size of the proposed incinerator - the largest in the world using this technology. "For no other reason, a full environmental assessment should be done to alleviate the concerns of the residents who have in the past, lived with past mistakes of these 'bigger and better state of the art' facilities."
As the residential neighbourhood closest to the proposed facility, CAPE is worried about truck traffic. Liberty expects up to 28,000 truck trips a year to and from its facility, as it hauls sewage in from as far away as Oshawa and London, and carries ash away for disposal.
CAPE's letter says already "trucks are sometimes lined up on the street to get into the yards and they turn up so much dust and dirt it is sometimes hard to see down the street." They also note that the city's new central composting facility just east of Strathearne is about to add 50 more trucks a day to local traffic.
Environment Hamilton echoes many of these concerns and adds a few more of its own. It calls the Liberty proposal an "end-of-pipe approach to the management of municipal sewage sludge and therefore . potentially not the most sustainable method". It points to the Ministry of the Environment's own documents which say its main focus is pollution prevention.
"We do not believe your Ministry will have satisfied the requirements of its own Statement of Environment Values if this facility is approved without consideration of alternative methods for the management of sewage sludge, including improving the quality of this material through comprehensive pollution prevention efforts."
Hamilton East MPP Andrea Horwath is also questioning the provincial commitment to protecting the environment. In her February newsletter, Horwath says "new sources of potential pollution in our communities must be forced to undergo the most stringent of environmental reviews."
She's angry that the province hasn't required Liberty Energy to do this from the beginning. "Instead of ensuring all the environmental impacts of this proposed energy project are properly understood, and mitigated, the McGuinty government is content to simply push aside residents and the City's requests for further environmental study and review."
The concerns of city council and the waste reduction task force are described in earlier CATCH articles available at
The Liberty Energy website at www.libertyenergycentre.ca includes the environmental screening report being challenged as inadequate.
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