8 January 2010

Opponents Vow to Appeal Approval of Railway-Tie Plant

Waste railway ties will soon be incinerated for
energy at a plant on Mission Flats.

Kamloops British Columbia - A controversial gasification plant that will turn railway ties into energy has the go-ahead from the Ministry of Environment, but opponents are already saying they will appeal.
 
Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp. president Kim Sigurdson told The Daily News from Winnipeg on Thursday a permit has been approved for his company to set up a gasification plant on Mission Flats.
 
Two one-megawatt gasifiers will go into operation late next year, he said.
 
Ministry approval follows on the heels of an endorsement by the Interior Health Authority last month.
 
"We have by far the only technology in the world to use ties to create power and heat," Sigurdson said. "We're going to find a home for these ties and clean this mess up."
 
The plant will represent a $12 million investment and employ about two dozen people.
 
The project was opposed both by City council, which voted unanimously to ask the environment ministry to stop it, and by a group called Save Kamloops, which describes it as a "toxic waste incinerator."
 
Sigurdson, however, said the gasification technology, developed at the Energy & Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D., has very low emissions and will prove itself.
 
"I believe people in Kamloops will come to understand it just by looking at what we're doing," he said. "There won't be any black smoke billowing out of it.
 
"I believe we'll win the hearts and minds of the people in Kamloops."
 
Nevertheless, he expects some opponents to continue protesting. "I don't believe I'm going to convince them of it."
 
Reaction from Save Kamloops would seem to confirm his expectation.
 
"I am absolutely outraged," said Lorna Williams, one of the cofounders of the group. "I think they've been brainwashed," she said of those who believe the project is green technology.
 
Williams said the group will meet tonight to discuss strategy but, "There will be an appeal." She said a court case may even be considered.
 
"I just don't understand what's happening," she said. "This whole thing stinks. I'm afraid."
 
She said the group had provided a sound scientific argument against the project but politics appears to have come into play. "We are absolutely amazed that the people of Kamloops now end up with a pilot project as experimentation here," she said of the U.S. research project.
 
However, another local organization supports the project. Bill McQuarrie, executive director of the Interior Science and Innovation Council, called the issuance of the permit "the right decision" based on the technology.
 
He said the MOE's research was "exhaustive," and that a strict air monitoring program will be put in place.
 
"This quarterly monitoring program far exceeds the normal conditions of a permit," he said, but urged ACC to publish air-monitoring findings.
 
Sigurdson said the environment ministry asked for a number of changes in terms of the permit, and also raised a concern from environmentalists about incineration of ties containing Penta, or Pentachlorophenol, a preservative common in pressure-treated wood and sometimes used in ties instead of creosote.
 
He said CP Rail, which will supply the ties, doesn't use Penta ties but he has provided the ministry with a guarantee they won't be used at the ACC plant.
 
Sigurdson expects one gasifier to be commissioned at the site in August or September, with a second unit following soon after. Startup should be 30 to 60 days later, he estimated.
 
He said electrical production from the plant will be channelled into the BC Hydro grid and will equate to enough power for about 500 to 600 homes.
 
Other communities are expressing interest in the concept, he said, and it would be especially useful for northern communities because existing diesel generators can be adapted for syngas created by the process.
 
It's estimated that there are 2.5 million waste railway ties in need of disposal.
 
McQuarrie said gasification of ties is "a huge step towards safely eliminating" the contamination caused by waste ties.
 
Mel Rothenburger.