by George Le Masurier | Nov 29, 2017
Related topic: Did the waste-to-energy committee discussion miss the point?
The tension between staff and elected officials of the Comox Strathcona Waste Management board (CSWM) ramped up another notch this week.
The friction has increased since directors openly criticized Comox Valley Regional District staff at a full CSWM board meeting two weeks ago. They accused staff of manipulating the wording of an engineering contract to disregard the will of publicly elected officials.
At that same meeting, CSWM directors also accused staff of giving more weight in their recommendations to the views of a staff advisory board than to the elected board.
This breakdown of trust and struggle for power erupted again this week when directors rejected a staff recommendation to set aside the committee’s interest in technologies that convert solid waste into energy.
A select committee of the CSWM board has been exploring the latest technologies that transform undiverted municipal solid waste into energy or recyclable materials, rather than burying it in a landfill.
The committee’s chair, Area B Director Rod Nichol, said the committee’s goal is to extend the useful life of the Pigeon Lake landfill and to not squander the inherent energy contained in undiverted waste.
And to dispose of solid waste in a manner more friendly to the environment.
But when consulting firm Morrisson Herschfield tabled its evaluation of three companies that offer varying WTE technologies, it quickly became obvious that staff and elected officials were at odds again.
Directors privately wondered if they had received the full consultant’s report, or whether they got a version amended by the staff advisory committee.
Marc Rutten, the CVRD’s General Manager of Engineering Services, recommended that the CSWM board stop its consideration of WTE technologies, and take it up again in 2022 as part of the 10-year update of its 2012 Solid Waste Management Plan.
That didn’t sit well with directors who instead ordered staff to use the consultant’s data to provide a more accurate cost comparison between the status quo of burying undiverted waste in a landfill and two of the different WTE technologies.
Rutten based his recommendation on the consultant’s conclusion that continuing to bury undiverted waste was less expensive and less risky than any of the three WTE technologies.
But directors questioned the validity of the consultant’s report, saying it didn’t give a true “apples to apples” comparison of costs.
The report only compared the cost of the CSWM landfilling operations to the costs of the three WTE technologies. It didn’t take into account the CSWM’s cost of source-separating recyclables and organic composting, which is already included in most processes that convert waste to energy.
Campbell River Director Charlie Cornfield was adamant that the cost comparison was flawed, and other directors agreed they didn’t have enough information to make a decision about whether to pursue one of the WTE solutions.
Directors asked staff to prepare a more detailed analysis of what would change for the CSWM operation with the implementation of each technology, what wouldn’t change, and what that would cost.
They also want a breakdown of the cost of each of the CSWM current operations, such as source-separating materials, composting organics, education programs, dealing with hazardous refuse, etc.
Director Roger Kishi of Cumberland urged the committee to eliminate incineration technology as a third WTE option.
Incineration involves direct burning of undiverted waste. It’s a technology commonly used in Europe and at B.C.’s only WTE facility in Burnaby.
And while the emissions from incinerating waste are minimal, according to the consultant, Kishi said the public could never support the optics of a tall smokestack.
After more than two hours of debate, one thing became obvious: The consultant’s terms of reference conflicted with the elected officials goals and weren’t adequate for them to assess cost comparisons between the status quo of landfilling and new technologies that convert that waste into energy.
It’s important for the CSWM committee to fully understand the cost of undertaking any new technology. And to do that the committee must have accurate comparisons if it hopes to convince the CSWM board, the public and the provincial government that moving to a WTE solution makes sense for taxpayers and the environment.
by George Le Masurier | Nov 9, 2017
Photo: The new engineered landfill that will serve the entire north Island
THE next time you drag your trash bins to the curb, think about what happens next to that garbage.
If you have conscientiously reduced, recycled and reused, you will have sent just a small amount of waste to the Pigeon Lake dump, now known by the gentrified title, Comox Valley Waste Management Center. And chances are good that your trash bin contained mostly plastic packaging.
When it reaches the dump, workers will bury your trash, and everyone else’s, in a landfill and leave it to decompose over the next 1,000 years. During that time, in older landfills, it will leach toxic liquids into the soil and methane gas into the atmosphere.
Landfills are North America’s third largest source of methane, which is 25 times more detrimental to the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
Not long ago, the Comox Strathcona Waste Management board of directors (CSWM) thought they had so much landfill capacity that it didn’t seem urgent to explore more environmentally-friendly technologies for disposing of municipal garbage.
The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change Strategy (ENV) approved the CSWM Solid Waste Management Plan in 2013, and an amended plan in 2016 to permit construction of a new engineered landfill at Pigeon Lake that will contain toxic liquids and capture methane gas.
The new landfill is so big, the size of 11 CFL football fields, that it is projected to hold the entirety of the north Island region’s municipal waste for at least 20 years.
But what happens then, and do new technologies offer a better solution?
Director Rod Nichol
Those are the questions newly-elected Area B Director Rod Nichol started asking three years ago. Those questions led him to technologies that convert waste-to-energy (WTE).
Nichol’s efforts gained enough support on the CSWM board to formally explore the latest technologies that transform undiverted municipal solid wastes (MSW) into energy or recyclable materials. His goal was to reduce the volume of garbage buried in the new landfill and extend its usable life.
On Nov. 28, a special WTE committee, which Nichol chairs, will consider the recommendations of a consultant who has reviewed three different proposals to cope with the north Island’s garbage problem — Eco Waste Solutions, Sustane Technologies and WTT Technology.
It’s anticipated the technology review will answer several questions about waste-to-energy:
Do any of the WTE proposals provide sustainable and environment-friendly solutions? Will they reduce the cost of dumping? Will they undermine the progress of waste reduction programs? And will the provincial government even allow WTE when the north Island diversion rate is still well under 60 percent?
Waste to energy solutions
Two of the three proposals the CSWM board will consider appear to involve some form of burning waste to directly or indirectly produce energy or fuel.
While incineration is common in Europe, British Columbia has only one active WTE plant in Burnaby (built in 1988). And none of the applicant companies appear to have working models in Canada or the United States.
On its website, Eco Waste Solutions promotes burning undiverted residual waste in large incinerators to produce electricity. This would require a tall smokestack towering high above the Comox Valley.
Given that Island Health issued an air quality advisory for the City of Courtenay this week, and ongoing widespread concerns about the effect of wood stoves on people with certain medical conditions, it’s unlikely this proposal would garner much support.
Sustane Technologies’ website says their company has developed the technology to separate plastics from organic material, and to produce biomass fuel pellets and diesel fuel (from the plastics). It does not utilize incineration or any direct combustion.
There are other, less common, methods of turning waste to energy, such as gasification (which produces combustible gas) or pyrolysis (which produces combustible tar or bio-oil).
It’s harder to assess the third applicant, WTT Technology, from its website. The Netherlands company says it integrates mechanical and biological (composting and digestion) treatments in solutions tailor-made for each installation. It claims no harmful emissions, and does not mention incineration.
All three applicants claim their technologies can recover 90 percent of what the CSWM Center in Cumberland currently plans to bury in its new landfill. If true, that would mean the landfill could service the north Island 10 times longer than currently projected, perhaps for up to 200 years.
The technical reports submitted by the three companies and the consultant’s review will be made public a day before the CSWM’s Nov. 28 meeting.
WTE versus Zero Waste
Burning undiverted garbage (trash that can’t be recycled or reused) to generate electricity also produces emissions harmful to the atmosphere. And it makes no difference if the garbage is burned directly or converted into fuel that is burned later.
Buddy Boyd, a director of Zero Waste Canada, said the only real sustainable solution is a Zero Waste world, which he believes is possible without affecting our quality of life.
His group’s mission is “to help individuals, businesses, and governments transition to a circular economy, making the use of landfills, incinerators, and waste-to-energy plants obsolete.”
Boyd said the “so-called emerging technologies are unsustainable scams.”
“None of the proposals for the Comox Valley challenge the community to do better in living a zero waste lifestyle,” he said. “In fact, they do the opposite: They require a guaranteed supply of waste to fuel their operations and pay off the company’s capital costs.”
CSWM Director Charlie Cornfield, of Campbell River, said a zero waste world would be ideal, and to achieve it would require a massive global shift in manufacturing, packaging and education.
“We can’t change society overnight, so what do we do in the interim,” he said? “It’s better than we turn this garbage into fuel than to have it floating around like giant islands in the ocean.”
And, he called landfills a 19th century solution.
“We can’t keep throwing garbage into a hole,” he said. “Waste-to-energy is better, and will save taxpayers millions of dollars.”
Environment ministry policy
Responding to a query from Decafnation, the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy sent the following statement via email:
“Current ministry policy supports the 5R pollution prevention hierarchy … whereby waste materials are managed at the highest possible level and waste-to-energy is not undertaken unless all of the higher level options have been considered.
“The hierarchy and current ministry legislation and guidance does not preclude any form of waste-to-energy or incineration but establishes criteria that must be met in order to meet higher levels of the hierarchy instead of disposal.”
Guidance documents for waste-to-energy can be found here.
The province prefers to let regional district determine the best strategies for disposal and managing municipal solid waste.
What’s happened so far
Besides the new landfill at Pigeon Lake, the Solid Waste Management Plan calls for environmentally-mandated closure of all other landfills on the north Island, including the Campbell River landfill; building transfer stations in those communities losing landfills; and, adding a methane burners and an organic composting facility.
The CSWM also asked Nichol’ committee to study waste-to-energy technologies.
CSWM Director Brenda Leigh, from the Oyster River area, says the last time the board looked at WTE in 2010, “we learned that the cost per tonne significantly exceeded the cost of landfilling and that we did not have the volume to make WTE economically viable.”
She noted that the WTE committee has probed other municipalities about contributing their undiverted garbage to a WTE stream.
“But as far as I am aware, this proposal hasn’t advanced beyond talking,” she said.
Nichol says he has spoken to elected officials in other communities, including Victoria. But he doesn’t anticipate volume being an issue as all three companies would scale their operations to the region and its projected population growth.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps told Decafnation, “Without knowing precisely what technology is being considered, I think Director Nicol’s approach to look for innovative solutions to use waste as a resource is commendable. In the 21st century we need to make every effort as local governments to create closed-loop systems and limit waste.”
What happens next
If the CSWM board wants to pursue construction of a WTE plant at Pigeon Lake, it would have to amend its Solid Waste Management Plan again and get a new approval from the B.C. government. That would mean either achieving a 70 percent diversion before approval, or convincing the province to bend on this criterion.
Then regional district staff would have to work out details and negotiate with the company selected to provide the service.
Nichol said he was told this process could take 18 months or longer, but he believes it could be completed more quickly.
How Canada and B.C. rank worldwide
Canadians generate more municipal waste than all other 16 nations in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), according to the Conference Board of Canada.
We’re the worst performer, producing twice as much waste in 2008 as Japan, the best performer.
British Columbia does better at reducing, recycling and reusing than every province, except Nova Scotia. But we still generate 573 kg per capita every year of un-diverted garbage that must be buried in landfills.
And that’s a far greater amount of waste per person than the new provincial guidelines.
According to the environment ministry’s “A Guide to Solid Waste Management Planning,” which supports regional districts in developing goals and targets in their solid waste planning, there are two provincial targets for 2020/21:
1) Lower the municipal solid waste disposal rate to 350 kg per person per year; and,
2) Have 75 percent of BC’s population covered by an organic waste disposal restriction. The guide can be found here.
by George Le Masurier | Aug 11, 2017
That the Courtenay-Comox Sewage Commission shelved its multi-million dollar sewerage project this summer comes as no surprise.
For nearly two years, Comox Valley citizens have implored the commission and regional district engineers to consider less expensive and more effective solutions for moving raw sewage from Courtenay and Comox to a treatment plant on Brent Road, on the Comox peninsula.
And to do it on a site or sites that present no risk to people’s drinking water.
But the commission, strong-armed by the representatives from Comox Council and aided by a misinformed CFB Comox delegate, pressed ahead anyway to build a new pump station in Area B, which has no representation on the commission.
Like so many of the commission’s sewer plans in the past, this one seemed destined for another lawsuit costly to Courtenay and Comox taxpayers.
But faced with a cost estimate nearly double the original budget — $12 million to $22 million — and the spectre of adverse impacts to private wells in the neighborhood of the proposed site, the regional district’s engineers saw red flags and took the summer to reconsider.
Courtenay Councillor Erik Eriksson
For more reasonable thinkers, like Erik Eriksson, a Courtenay representative on the commission, this pause in a misguided project provides an opportunity for the regional district to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new overall plan that encompasses the whole Comox Valley, and that takes citizen and environmental concerns seriously.
Let’s review the facts:
The commission proposed building a Comox No. 2 pump station — at a cost of $12 million — to redirect its raw sewage from a deteriorating pipe that runs along the base of the Willemar Bluffs. The current pumps at existing Courtenay and Comox pump stations are inadequate to move the sewage up and over the Comox peninsula to the Brent Road treatment plant.
But the commission’s own Advisory Committee said building a new pump station was the least desirable option of several it considered. The committee recommended rebuilding the existing pump station in Courtenay as the most preferred solution.
The regional district’s own initial financial analysis showed upgrading the Courtenay No. 1 pump station was the best and most cost-effective option in the long run. Email documentation shows the Town of Comox disliked this report.
But an independent analysis confirmed that the CVRD could save taxpayers between $7 million and $12 million in the long-term if it upgraded the pumps at Courtenay immediately.
The commission’s long-term plan is to upgrade the pumps at Courtenay No. 1 in just a few years anyway. So why spend millions unnecessarily now?
In the alternative, the Advisory Committee noted, upgrading the existing pump station at Jane Place in Comox, would also cost less in the long run.
Either of those options would eliminate the need for a second pump station and eliminate the vulnerable section under the Willemar Bluffs. Plus, in both of these options, raw sewage would not threaten any drinking water supplies. Courtenay and Comox residents enjoy piped water, not vulnerable private wells.
And Eriksson, a potential candidate for mayor of Courtenay, has a third option that could also resolve issues created by the failed South Sewer referendum earlier this year.
Eriksson proposes building a new state-of-the-art treatment plant in the south Courtenay area that would handle all wastewater from west of the Courtenay River. That would take enough pressure off the existing Courtenay and Comox pump stations to render the proposed Comox No. 2 pump unnecessary.
And it would also solve the problem of failing septic systems in the Royston and Union Bay areas and provide the infrastructure for new development.
It would also provide a solution for the Village of Cumberland, which shamefully continues to pollute the Trent River watershed and estuary.
The new treatment plant could treat the water to such a high standard to use its effluent for agriculture and other reclamation purposes, including reinjection into groundwater. In an increasing number of communities around the world, wastewater is cleaned to potable standards and even flowed back into drinking water systems.
There are probably other farsighted options, too, rather than spend $22 million — at least! — on a pump station inherent with risks to humans and potentially expensive lawsuits that serves only a narrow purpose.
If there’s any justice and common sense left in this world, next month the engineers for the Courtenay-Comox Sewage Commission will recommend a more visionary, comprehensive sewerage strategy for the entire Comox Valley.
by George Le Masurier | Jun 15, 2017
If you get drinking water from a private well British Columbia, the provincial government provides no protection from any activities that might foul your water quality.
Sylvia Burrosa, the regional hydrologist for the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations (FLNRO), delivered that piece of bad news for thousands of Comox Valley residents at a June 6 meeting with Beech Street residents.
Beech Street residents fear that construction and operation of a sewage pump station in the rural neighborhood poses a high risk to their mostly shallow wells. And a hydrology analysis by GW Solutions commissioned by the residents supports that concern.
Several of the residents recently met with representatives of FLNRO, the Vancouver Island Health Authority and Kris LaRose, the Comox Valley Regional District’s senior manager of water/wastewater services, at the health department’s Courtenay office.
Burrosa said there are no protections for individual wells under the B.C. Drinking Water Protection Act (DWPA). It only addresses threats to drinking water that affect two or more households connected to the same system.
In other words, someone or some entity, such as a regional district, can pollute or dry up your water supply, and you’ll get no help from the province’s water protection law.
That should concern everyone with a private well. But it especially concerns Beech Street residents because LaRose admitted the construction will impact residents’ water supplies.
LaRose said the degree of impact on the wells will be determined by the method of construction of the pump station that will move sewage from Courtenay and Comox households to the treatment plant at a higher elevation.
If they dewater the site to place the pumps below ground there’s a high risk it will dry out neighborhood wells during the entire 18 months of construction.
If they use a pile driving method, rather than dewater, there is an unknown risk of having a permanent object in the aquifers from which the wells draw water. The piles could cause groundwater flows to change direction, making the wells useless.
Given the failed history of regional district engineers to predict outcomes of previous sewage planning (Willemar Bluff erosion, treatment plant odors), and the subsequent successful lawsuits, the Beech Street residents have good reason to worry.
Burrosa also noted that provincial regulations require pipelines carrying sewage to be no closer than 30 metres of wells. Rural residents know that their wells must be 30 metres from their septic fields.
LaRose said the CVRD had to double-wrap the new sewage pipe from HMCS Quadra for this reason. This appears to mean the CVRD would have to do the same for the pipes in the Beech Street neighborhood, which would significantly add to the cost of construction.
None of the health authority or FLNRO representatives could answer questions about the legality of a sewage facility within 30 metres of wells, or whether the forcemain must stay 30 metres from wells along the four (4) kilometres route from Beech Street to the Brent Road treatment plant.
Engineers for the Courtenay/Comox Sewage Commission are waiting for results from an assessment of the forcemain sewer pipe and a new hydrogeology report before they can estimate the cost of constructing the new pump station. Any of those items could raise red flags that derail the project.
But given the risks during construction and the promise of no noise, vibration or odor from the pump station, another lawsuit over Courtenay/Comox sewage planning seems likely.
The scope of the report does not extend beyond removing pipes from Balmoral Beach and the estuary foreshore, and moving sewage over a longer term to the Brent Road treatment plant, which are all good and necessary goals.