Over the next two years, the CBRM will spend $20M to burn garbage at the
Grand Lake Road Incineration
Facility. The never ending upgrades necessary with this incinerator and the
ash handling/storage problems
associated with incineration account for $12M in capital costs. Add to
that another $4M a year in operating
costs. The cost to taxpayers: $20M for two years. To make matters worse,
this enormous amount of money is
for only 53% of the area's garbage, 1/3 of which (by weight) must then be
landfilled after incineration. Also, it
doesn't factor in future costs for 'normal' replacement of incineration
equipment. It's a staggering amount of
money to burn garbage. It's especially disturbing when the CBRM is cutting
jobs, services and programs.
The Mayor and Council have repeatedly blamed the recent budget shortfall on
the provincial government's
mandate to implement a recycling program. However, the $18.9M Solid Waste
Management Strategy
(SWMS), approved by Council last month, primarily addresses the incineration
aspects of waste management
($12M) rather than reducing, reusing, recycling and composting. At a time
when the emphasis for managing
garbage should be geared towards the 3Rs, the CBRM is barely in first gear.
Instead of gradually working towards reducing the amount of waste going to
the incinerator, the CBRM
negotiated a deal with the Province, in 1997, to import 1400 tonnes of Nova
Scotia's biomedical waste to this
Facililty. The Nova Scotia Department of Environment (NSDOE), amended the
permit to include the
incineration of this waste in our community. This garbage incinerator
became the Province's dumping grounds
for biomedical waste on January 20, 1998. Environmental and health impact
assessments were never
conducted for this plan, nor were the residents of this area asked if they
agreed with it.
The CBRM defends incineration and the biomedical waste deal by saying they
'generate revenue', but weighed
against the real costs to run the incinerator, it's a pittance. Weighed
against the real harm incineration does to
the environment and to the people breathing its toxic gases, it's
indefensible and irresponsible. Our municipal
officials ran to the rescue of the province, for a small handout, when
Halifax could no longer burn their own
biomedical wastes due to incineration failures. Importing more hazardous
waste is not what this area needs,
especially to a Facility that can't properly burn garbage.
On December 31, 1997, before the CBRM began burning this biomedical waste,
several of us visited the
incinerator's ash disposal area. The ash produced from incineration is an
obvious indicator of the incinerator's
performance. We photographed and videotaped extensive amounts of unburned
and partially burned garbage
in the ash. If paper and plastic materials were slipping through this
incinerator barely affected by the heat,
how could we expect it to sterilize medical waste and eradicate the
potential risks associated with these wastes
(the biohazard component being a wide range of bacterium, viruses and other
microorganisms). Despite the
Minister of Environment Don Downe's assurance that the Facility was
evaluated in a 'professional and
responsible manner,' and despite 'experts' claims that this so-called 'World
Class, State-of-the-Art' incinerator
would safely handle the Province's biomedical waste, we were not convinced.
Following the release of the video to the media, the NSDOE proceeded to
conduct an internal assessment
which focused primarily on the incineration of biomedical waste, rather than
of wastes in general. Incomplete
combustion of garbage also presents serious risks and should have been
considered equally. The assessment,
by environmental engineer, Arun Chatterjee was released February 25, 1998.
It concluded, "the Incinerators
meet the requirements for good combustion practice during the incineration
of biomedical waste." In other
words, there should be no problems incinerating biomedical waste (despite
the obvious problems incinerating
garbage).
The NSDOE, then instructed the CBRM to correct the problem of unburned
garbage. They were to
incorporate several process changes, one of which included having the
workers separate unburned material
from the ash and put it back in the incinerator. Not only is that a hazard
to workers but a State-of-the-Art
incinerator should burn it properly the first time and shouldn't have to try
it again. Former Environment
Minister Wayne Adams was "confident that once the modifications were in
place, the issue of unburned
materials would be resolved." One year has passed and nothing's been
resolved.
On January 24, 1999, one year after the Facility began handling all of the
province's biomedical waste, we
went back to the ash disposal area. This time, along with piles of
partially burned garbage, we saw partially
burned biomedical waste, including syringes (with fluid still in them),
rubber tubing, surgical masks, hospital
greens, big tubes with words such as "blood" and"capillary dialyzers" still
legible on the unburned labels,etc.
All of these materials are easily combustible, yet some are barely singed.
This evidence flies in the face of the
NSDOE's claim, in their 1998 assessment, that the CBRM Facility meets the
requirements for good
combustion practice during the incineration of biomedical waste. What
should have been added at the end of
that sentence was "sometimes."
MY VIEW, Part II
by Marlene Kane
Municipal trash incinerator wrong method of disposal and should be shut down
Cape Breton Post, April 19, 1999
The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) issued
Guidelines for the Management of
Biomedical Waste in Canada in 1992. The Guidelines describe incineration as
a 'process whereby combustible
materials are converted into non-combustible residue or ash.' Clearly, the
CCME's description of ash in no way
resembles the reality of what comes out of that incinerator. Based on the
condition of the ash, the province's
environmental regulators (NSDOE) should have ordered an immediate shutdown
until an independent
investigation was complete.
The manager of solid waste at the CBRM, Paul Oldford, stated they were well
within their guidelines and they
do expect to get some unburned material in the ash. Oldford said, "There's
really no cause for concern."
I contacted the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva to get their
opinion. I asked them to view the
photographs I had taken, which were posted on the Internet by the Sierra
Club of Canada.
(biopictures.html ). The
response I received stated that the
pictures did show insufficiently burned material, which should not usually
come out of a municipal incinerator,
and that partially burned infectious health-care waste (such as used
syringes) should be considered hazardous.
It was also suggested that I contact the local authority in charge of
enforcing regulations on adequate treatment
and disposal of wastes. Our local 'enforcer', the NSDOE, has begun yet
another internal investigation, but two
months have passed and it's still business as usual at the incinerator.
The first internal assessment the NSDOE conducted in February 1998, was
neither adequate nor accurate and I
do not think this current investigation will solve the problems that exist.
This so-called 'State-of-the-Art,
World Class' facility leaves unsterilized biomedical waste and other easily
combustible materials in the ash it
produces. More band-aid solutions will be recommended and millions of
dollars will be spent, instead of
facing the reality that the machine isn't capable of effectively destroying
waste and is hazardous to this
community. The CBRM is pushing ahead with expensive upgrades before the
investigaton is complete. It's as
if they already know the conclusion.
Incinerating garbage and medical waste generates emissions which are
released into the air we breathe every
minute the incinerators are operating. The emissions can contain heavy
metals, acid gases, dioxins and other
toxic by-products, most of which are only monitored once a year.
Temperatures which the permit requires be
maintained in the auxiliary burner, to eliminate the potential for dioxin
and furan formation, are not
maintained. Dioxins are the most toxic industrial poisons known to modern
science. A recent draft USEPA
(United States Environmental Protection Agency) report concluded there are
no safe levels for dioxins.
The Facility has violated permit requirements, yet no action has been taken by
the NSDOE. It seems that once this
Facility was given a license to burn, it was given a license to
self-regulate.
The NSDOE requested last June that the CBRM install a monitor which would
continuously monitor HCl
(hydrochloric acid) coming out of the stacks. Almost a year has passed and
it still hasn't been installed.
In January 1998, Environment Canada released a report which rated the CBRM
incinerator as the second
largest source of man-made mercury pollution in Atlantic Canada at 88
kg/year, second only to the garbage
incinerator in PEI. Mercury, a nerve poison that can cause muscle and brain
dysfunction, is vaporized and
dispersed through the stacks when materials containing mercury are
incinerated. The NSDOE disputes this
claim by the Federal Environment Department, saying it's closer to 1
kg/year.
The Municipality, by the sheer virtue of owning an incinerator, has no
incentive to reduce, reuse, recycle and
compost because they have a big mouth to feed. This incinerator is designed
to 'burn' 150 tonnes/day and it
must continue to have a fixed amount to incinerate. If the CBRM is forced
to comply with the guidelines for
the 3Rs, (they're not doing it voluntarily), there won't be enough waste to
burn and they'll have to either close
the Incinerator or try to import more waste to burn. Biomedical waste from
Newfoundland, for example, which
is currently transported on the CN Ferry to North Sydney and trucked
through Cape Breton to New
Brunswick. I can see how this could be of interest to the CBRM. Another
back room deal for contaminated
business. Based on the CBRM's past performance, will the residents of this
area have a say in that decision?
Absolutely not.
The contract with the CBRM to burn all of Nova Scotia's biomedical waste
should be cancelled. The Province
should stop contributing to the environmental woes of this area and employ
other cheaper, safer, more effective
methods of handling this waste. Revenue generating schemes sought after in
future by the CBRM must be
more environmentally responsible and less harmful to the residents of this
community. This Facility should be
closed now because it doesn't work, it isn't safe, it's too expensive and we
simply do not need it. Non-
incineration technologies for handling wastes are not only safer for the
community and the workers, but they
are less expensive and they provide greater economic benefits in terms of
employment. Marlene Kane is a concerned citizen who resides in Sydney, NS Sobeys expansion should be stopped - ecological, legal, financial concerns [Back to Letters to the Editor]
Sobeys expansion should be stopped - ecological, legal, financial concerns
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