Municipality says $8.5m to be spent upgrading, not fixing, stacks
By Tera Camus / Cape Breton Bureau-Halifax Herald, March 8, 1999
Sydney - They say the incinerator isn't broken, so
why is the Cape Breton Regional Municipality
spending $8.5 million to fix it?
That's the question on the mind of local
environmentalist Marlene Kane, who documented
on videotape unburned biomedical waste on the
site several weeks ago.
The $8.5-million incinerator funding was included
in a $16.6 million new waste management strategy
approved by regional council last Monday.
Two towers had been replaced already said Coun.
Vince Hall.
A new refrigerated storage area had been
constructed and two new oil burners are going to
be installed to replace the existing ones.
The money will also be spent to replace the Grand
Lake Road facility's pollution control unit.
The new one will allow operators to redirect
pollution from one burner out the stack of the
second burner if there's a problem, instead of
venting it out unscrubbed into the atmosphere.
Mr. Hall said the new equipment will give operators
better control over the temperatures used to burn
household and biomedical waste.
In January, Ms. Kane's videotape showed
unburned waste such as blood-filled syringes,
operating scrubs and a Tim Hortons cup in a
smoldering heap of ash behind the incinerator.
She says the changes being made prove there are
major problems at the incinerator.
Sydney Coun. Lorne Green agrees. He said the
Environment Department probably cracked down
on the municipality after seeing Ms. Kane's video
that showed too much unburned waste.
"$8.5 million sounds like building a new incinerator
to me, but (regional administration) said it's just to
maintain it and keep it up to standards," he said.
Although the provincial Environment Department is
now investigating the incinerator's efficiency, Mr.
Hall said there are no serious problems with it.
"The operation we have there is safe, but I'm not
foolish enough to say that there's not room for
improvements.
He added that the money for the incinerator is
needed for upgrades because more garbage will
be burned on site.
Ms. Kane wonders why the incinerator will have to
process more garbage when the new waste
management plan includes a recycling program.
Plastics, cardboard, newsprint and other
recyclables will be sent to a sorting station at the
Sydport Industrial Park.
"We should be burning less, so why are we burning
more?" she asked.
"If there was a backlog of garbage I could
understand it, but there is no backlog and we're
supposed to be reducing," she said. "Something
else is going on here.
"This is not a cost-effective way of disposing of
garbage.
Rumours are circulating that the regional
government is negotiating with the province of
Newfoundland to burn its biomedical waste.
"I never heard that but that's not to say it isn't true,"
Glace Bay Coun. Ron Burrows said. "It wouldn't
surprise me really ... but it hasn't been brought to
council."
The region's manager of solid waste denied the
suggestion.
"It has absolutely nothing to do with biomedical
waste," Paul Oldford said. "What (the changes are)
designed to do is integrate Sydney's waste into
that facility," he said. "It enables us to be able to
manage all our waste including our residuals."
He denied the incinerator has deficiencies,
despite all the changes.
About a year ago the incinerator began a 7-day
week operation to burn garbage redirected from
the closed Sydney landfill site.
The regional municipality has a $750,000 contract
to burn this province's biomedical waste.
