Tag: environment

we might have made a big mistake…

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 12 Comments.

It seems the City of New Westminster has decided to move towards single-stream recycling. This means that we will no longer be separating our paper from our plastics and containers, and will be throwing it all into one bin. The bin will be exactly like our existing black (garbage) and green-lid (organics) bins, and will be designed to be picked up by the same trucks.

At the time these ideas were floated, there was little feedback from the public. I didn’t comment at the time, as I felt that I was simply not informed enough to make a useful judgement about the merits of single-stream. I actually had lunch one day with the City’s Supervisor of Solid Waste, hoping he could explain the costs and benefits of going that way. It was clear to me after that meeting that I still didn’t fully understood the issue.

I was present at City Council on April 4 of this year when Allen Lynch , a New Westminster resident and Manager of North Shore Recylcing Program pleaded with council to not go down that path, but to consider the longer-term cost and sustainability implications of Single Stream Recycling. At the time, his issues seemed real, and I was happy to hear council direct Staff to address these concerns (most of which admittedly went over my head). I was equally happy to read a report from staff a month later that seemed to address all of the issues raised by Mr. Lynch. But it still stuck in my craw that somebody with a lifetime of professional experience managing recyclables was so convinced that the City was taking a wrong path going to single stream, and the main benefits to it were explained to me as saving money on trucks. When I feel underinformed, I tend to rely on experts in the field to explain the situation, and for the fourth time in this post already, I will admit I was not well-informed enough to take a position.

There was also quite a bit of discussion with the TrashTalkers group at NWEP, with some seeing the benefit of increased diversion promised by the Single Stream, and loving the idea of going to fortnight waste collection once it comes in, while others lamented the loss of 20 years of effective Community Based Social Marketing around the use of Blue Bins – we have taught a generation to separate recyclables, and recognize the differences in materials, are we going to lose some of that? Again, there were enough sides to this issue that the TrashTalkers could not come up with a consensus opinion, and therefore stayed out of the public debate.

I realise now that was a mistake. I should have met with Helen Spiegelman.

Tuesday, I attended a meeting of Zero Waste Vancouver, where Louise Swartz of Recycling Alternatives and Helen talked about single stream recycling, and the future of Extended Product Responsibility (EPR) programs in BC. It was a too-short 90 minutes, with a lively discussion amongst the participants, and I walked away with much of the information I was so lacking during my earlier ruminations on Single Stream Recycling.

Not to bury the lead; neither Helen (who has been involved in recycling and EPR programs since they began in the 80’s) nor Louise (who runs a very successful small business collecting recyclables from businesses and institutions) think that the move to single stream a good idea, for numerous good reasons.

Let’s see if I can summarise.

The justifications for going to commingling can be broken down to three “C”s: Cost, Convenience, and Capture. You can find them all mentioned here.

Cost is usually up front, and seems to be the main motivation behind New Westminster’s shift. By commingling recyclables, the same truck can be used for recycling as is used for trash, they just hose it out between loads. Therefore fewer vehicles are needed , and fewer crews to run the vehicles. The crews never leave the truck, so you only need one person per vehicle, and no-one is out in the rain physically tossing the recyclables. There is, of course, an upfront cost to buy the bins and the upgrade the trucks ($1.3 million in the case of New Westminster) , and there will actually be a small increase in the fee charged to residents (to cover the cost of the carts), but the City will save money in the long run, if all the other assumptions in the projection hold up.

“Convenience” is the assumption that separating your recyclables is a big hassle. I guess it is hard to argue that tossing everything in one bin is more convenient for the homeowner (… ugh….)

“Capture” is related to this. The assumption is that by making recycling more “convenient”, people will do it more, so a higher percentage of the recyclables will be captured, and diversion rates (the stuff at your curb that doesn’t go to the landfill) will go up. This has been measured in places that have gone to single-stream, and there is usually a slight increase in the percentage of materials going into the blue bins compared to the black bin (in the order of 5-10%).

Now let’s look at the alternative view on these three points:

The Cost savings are amortized over 20+ years, and are based on a lot of assumptions about fuel costs, about how we as a society are going to manage our waste, about where tipping fees are going, and about the future of recycling technology, markets for recycled materials, and producer extended product responsibility (EPR) programs. This is without even getting into the sustainability arguments around externalized costs relating to the down-cycling of materials and the loss of valuable materials, but let’s save that for another day, as this is already too long a rant.

The convenience gains are frankly ridiculous in New Westminster. Currently, the City asks that you separate your “garbage” (black bin) from your organics (green bin) and your recyclable containers and paper (blue box). We further ask that you separate your clean paper and newsprint from your containers by putting it in a blue or yellow bag along with your blue box. With commingling, you will still need to separate your “garbage” from you organics, and put your recyclable containers and paper in a blue bin. The only difference is that you can toss your paper in with the containers without having to put them in the bag first: hardly a massive time saver, and hardly a saving of hours of careful thought as people look at an object and wonder if it is a newspaper or a plastic container. So the increased convenience is a marginal gain at best.

However, what we lose by gaining this convenience is huge: and this is where the big lie comes in. Theoretically, there is an increase in “capture”; people will recycle more due to a mostly imaginary increase in convenience. However, this gain at the curb is very quickly lost at the Material Recovery Plant (MRF), and now we enter the murky world of Residuals.

Your recycled materials, either out of your blue box (plastic, metal and glass) or your new commingled blue bin (plastic metal glass and papers) go to an MRF to be sorted. (if you paper went in a blue/yellow bag, it is alreadt separared, so it goes through a separate process). At the MRF, the metal is removed using magnets and/or density-sorters, and the plastic and paper are sorted partially be mechanical means, and partially by hand. I wrote last year about touring one of these facilities in Iowa, but our MRF is in Surrey. Your recyclables are separated and bundled for shipping off to wherever they will be reprocessed (which is another whole separate Blog topic). At least most of it does. Some of the material that shows up in the MRF is not recyclable, either because it didn’t belong in the recycling in the first place (plastic bags, PVC, wood, BeeGees cassettes, etc.) or because it has been so contaminated and mixed with other materials it cannot be recycled (think a newspaper pressed up against a half-empty yoghurt container in the collection truck compactor). Depending on who you ask, and how you count, the residual rates in the MRFs can range from 5% to 50%. That is a big range. Clearly, even the most modest residual rates will offset any increase in “capture” you got from increased curb-side use. It also does not include the “down-cycling” component, that is the material that comes out of the MRF as much lower quality than it went into the blue bin, and consequently, cannot be used again for its original purpose.

The worst part is this residual rate going up (the 50% end oft he range as opposed to the 5% end) is largly the result of mixing fibre materials with containers, which is the only result of the New Wesmtinster’s commingling initiative! Of the materials being collected for recycling, paper is the one material that is at highest risk of being contaminated by other materials, and it is the material whose value as a commodity in the recycling market is most closely tied to its quality. A few shards of glass or a single sheet of soft plastic can turn a Tonne of paper fibre into a liability for the receiver, and can be stripped of its entire value. This is why the City currently asks you to separate your paper from the other products in the Blue box.

But it gets worse. I don’t know if anyone noticed, but Allen Lynch was quick to point this out at New West Council. As of May, 2011, The Province of BC added “packaging and printed paper” to their EPR regulation. That means that all packaging materials and all printed paper will be managed through an industry-led extended product stewardship program, the same type of program that now makes the producer responsible for refillable bottles, cans, tires, computers, paint, and all those other things you can take to a recycling facility and dispose of at no cost to you (because you paid for the recycling when you bought the product). What does this mean for the commingled recycling? Will the City get paid to collect the paper? Will the city send a bill to the EPR program operator (Encorp, or whomever)? Will all packaging (recyclable plastic and non-recyclable plastic, including films and blister packs) be mixed in with the paper? If so, how will we separate them? Simply put, the answers to these questions arw not known yet. The main point Allen Lynch was trying to make in April was that it may be irresponsible to throw a lot of money down this path until we know where it is going!

OK, one more point, just to throw gas on this fire. What happens to these MRF residuals? Traditionally, they go to the landfill, like the rest of your black bin trash, or potentially into the new incinerators that the region wants to install. However, with increased diversion, with an EPR program on packaging and paper, with organics in the Green Bin, there will continue to be less and less black bin trash. The fuel source for these incinerators is going away, even before they are built. However, residual waste from the MRF is excellent incinerator fuel! With the organics and wet materials out of it, it is low moisture, with the metal sorted out at the MRF, you are left with paper mixed with plastic film, heavy plastic, and a bit of broken glass: this shit will burn great! This I where the cynic says: The entire commingling move is a back-door way of diverting otherwise-recyclable materials to incinerators!

People who know me know I am not a conspiracy theorist, I always default to Hanlon’s razor. However, the implications of commingling are both unclear (in the real costing and in the fact that the metrics for diversion vs. residuals are very muddy from any City that has gone that way), and crystal clear (what the fate of the materials you put in your blue bin will be). The case for commingling is so poorly made, that I am waiting to be convinced that there is a sustainability component that I am missing. And while I wait, we are spending millions buying trucks and building incinerators.

I will come back to this theme in later posts. Mostly, I am confused about what we do next to deal with this issue. In New Westminster, we will be moving to commingling in 2012 unless we can prove to the Council prior to the November election that this is not the way we want to manage our recyclables. It is also an open secret that our Mayor is very interested in having a garbage incinerator installed in our City, in spite of the loud and ongoing public opposition to the idea.

To be continued…

My first actual Tree-huggin’ post

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.
Tree protection?

?????????During the recent Royal City Farmers Market fundraiser at the Heritage Grill (great time again, you guys!), I had a short chat with Councillor Lorrie Williams. Somehow the conversation gravitated to Tree Protection Bylaws. This is a topic that has come up several times at NWEP meetings over the last couple of years, and the NWEP members who serve on the City’s Environment Advisory Committee have mentioned that it arises occasionally at their meetings. There are a few people in New Westminster who have been advocating for this type of protection in recent years, Bill Zander amongst the most persistent. But there has been a push-back from City staff (mostly around cost and logistical issues- admittedly there is not much point having a bylaw if they cannot enforce it!) and even from a few members of Council.

An historic beech tree in my neighbourhood.

I had a conversation at one of the fall’s TransLink open houses with another Councillor (who shall remain nameless to protect the cornered), and the topic of laneway housing came up. (S)he was concerned about the loss of green space, rainwater infiltration, etc., that might result if we overbuild our single-family lots. I agreed and suggested we shouldn’t allow laneway housing until we have a strong Tree Protection Bylaw. The Councillor’s response was to take a bit of a double-take, then bemusement that I had trapped the Councillor that way. (S)he then offered a rather meek “we have lots of trees”. The conversation ended shortly after.

The beautiful dogwood in front of my home.

So I was pleased to hear that Councillor Williams has decided to bring this topic back to Council, and I decided to delegate to Council on the topic on Tuesday. No cameras were there, so I thought I would relate what I said for the record here.

Note that at Council, and in the excerpt below, I am speaking on behalf of the NWEP. The message below reflects the conversations the NWEP membership had at meetings, and the Directors of the NWEP unanimously approved my presenting this address to Council on behalf of the Group. Pretty much everything else you read on this Blog is my personal opinion, and is not necessarily the opinion of the NWEP or its members. Just so we are clear on the distinction.

The NWEP have discussed the issue of Tree Protection at length, and at our most recent meeting, agreed that a Tree Protection Bylaw for New Westminster was timely.

On many environmental, social and economic sustainability areas the City of New Westminster has taken a leadership position. However, this is an area, the protection of trees and our Urban Forest, where we have unfortunately been laggards.

Tree protection bylaws of varying strength are already in force in Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Delta, WhiteRock, North Vancouver , Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Maple Ridge, the Township of Langley, Victoria, Saanich, Nanaimo, Toronto…..well, the list goes on across the province, and across the country.

These bylaws vary in both their protection measures and the complexity of their implementation, but it is clearly within the Municipality’s authority to prohibit or regulate the cutting or damaging of trees, or to require that trees be replaced. Further, they all take into account the hazards caused by dangerous or diseased trees, and many designate significant areas (such as riparian areas around streams) or specific species or trees of historical value for special protection. Many use permit structures to become revenue-neutral.

I guess the point is we are not reinventing the wheel here, nor are the NWEP asking for New Westminster to be an exception. Tree Protection Bylaws are becoming standard practice in Canada.

The reasons Cities are establishing these bylaws are varied. Some Cities are rapidly developing and are concerned about habitat loss and the wholesale removal of forests at their edges. Others are concerned about greenway preservation and riparian protection for salmon-bearing or other ecologically-important streams in their districts, or are worried about slope stabilization in hilly terrain, or establishing green buffers between zoning changes.

However, most Cities simply recognize that trees play multiple roles in the 21st Century city. They shade buildings to provide energy savings; They buffer urban noise to make for a more peaceful environment; They filter CO2 and particulates out of the air while providing oxygen and acting as both humidity and temperature stabilizers in extreme weather; They absorb rainwater and reduce the load on stormwater drainage systems; They provide habitat for songbirds and other wildlife; They block light pollution and soften the “sharp edges” of a built-out urban environment. There is some evidence that trees actually prevent crime!

Here in New Westminster, trees provide all of these benefits, but additionally, we have our own specific reasons to have a very protective bylaw here. As one of western Canada’s most historic cities, it seems remarkable that we do not have a firm law protecting these historic landmarks. In my Brow-of-the Hill neighbourhood, there are several exceptional and well-preserved century-old trees. The loss of these remaining giants would be a loss for the entire community – but it is only to good grace of the current owner that protects this important natural heritage. Unfortunately, these examples are becoming fewer and far between as multi-family dwellings and densification have eroded our tree inventory over the last 50 years.

Development puts pressure on the City’s tree inventory.

And densification is clearly the way of the future. With New Westminster a signatory to the new Regional Growth Strategy, it is clear that New Westminster will become a more “compact” Regional City Centre, in order to accommodate the extra 40,000 people projected to live in our City by 2041. With this densification, the pressure will be on to replace single lots where our trees need protection the most with townhouses or multi-family dwellings and the normalization of laneway housing. Make no mistake, I think these changes can be a positive thing for building a more energy- and transportation-efficient housing stock, and are imperative if we are to build a more durable and sustainable community. However, these changes raise significant concerns about the preservation of remaining natural greenspace, about managing rainwater infiltration so we don’t overwhelm our stormwater infrastructure, and yes, maintaining the myriad benefits of trees. A Tree Protection Bylaw will not solve all of these problems, but it is an important first step to assuring the next generation will receive the same environmental, social, and economic benefit from tress that we do.

Trees are often removed to “improve property”, with no need to replace them. Note three trunks in this pic that were large fir trees a year ago.
This lot on 8th Street used to have two single family houses, and trees.

For these reasons, the NWEP believe that the time is now for a protective tree bylaw in New Westminster, and we call upon City Council and staff to work towards developing a Bylaw that suits the City’s specific tree protection needs.

After my presentation, the Councillors asked a few questions, but seemed very receptive to the idea. Mayor Wright seemed the most cautious (his standard “we need to consider many things here….” line), but I did emphasize that there ware lots of resources available on line and through inter-governmental discussion groups, there are many Cities that have these bylaws, and I have confidence that City Staff can find the right mix of protection for the City. I also offered any help the NWEP could provide in researching tree bylaws, and in helping with public education campaigns about the value of trees in our urban environment.

Later in the Meeting, Councillor Williams’ motion was read:

“WHEREAS trees are essential to air quality, esthetics and quality of life;
BE IT RESOLVED THAT New Westminster develop a Tree Retention / Removal Bylaw for both public and private property.”

The motion received unanimous support of the Council (Councillor Harper not present).

This decades-old Cornellian cherry dogwood dominates my back yard, but it isn’t going anywhere on my watch.

An Epic Vancouver Weekend

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Sunday I did what all us “environmental types” are meant to do. Like a salmon heading back to the home stream to spawn, battling Orcas, fish nets and hooks, rapids, starvation, bears, all just to squirt in some gravel and drop dead of exhaustion. I went to EPIC Vancouver

A “Sustainable Living Expo”. A consumer fair promoting the “Green Lifestyle”. An event that bills itself as “The largest sustainable lifestyle show and eco-marketplace in Vancouver, Western Canada”. The entire thing is mind-bending.

But to maintian my eco-conscious credibility, I must go. Who can say to have supped from the well of sustainability if they have not embraced the EPIC lifestyle show? I needed to try it out, see what the latest thing in Green Living is, to see if I am keeping up with the Jonses in my pursuit of the perfect Green Lifestyle.

Right off the bat, the first two booths at the entrance are Toyota (the Worlds #1 automobile manufacturer) and Post Media (The Canwest print media spinoff that brings us the Sun, the Province, and the National Post). This is not starting well. I may not totally understand the whole “sustainability lifestyle”, but I’m pretty surprised to learn it includes building 8.5 million cars a year and turning dead trees into daily pro-business propaganda sheets.

But you aren’t going to hear me say anything negative about it, seeing as how just by walking near their products, I have apparently given Toyota “all necessary rights in perpetuity [to]…the worldwide use of [my] image, voice and/or comments, as is or as may be edited, in any media whatsoever now and hereinafter…yadda yadda yadda…”
Somehow, their wishing for my enjoyment is a little hollow after that legal beating…

Toyota and Canwest aren’t the only big companies greenwashing their way through EPIC. After all what is more sustainable than a toilet brush holder made of wood and cotton towels in pleasing earth tones?

I almost felt sorry the guys who actually had good ideas:

This small start-up made a washable re-useable food wrapping product using fabric and bees wax. A sort of re-usable but biodegradable and completely sustainable Saran Wrap. It was actually a good idea, but how can he compete with a $150,000 zillion-mile-an-hour electric car?

Or even the dude making seatbelts out of seatbelts?

I mean not using saran wrap might be sustainable, but it doesn’t really fit the lifestyle, does it? A seatbelt purse tells the world you recycle, it is a “cars suck” bumper sticker for your bike that you don’t even need a bike for.

Again, I’m no expert, but my accountant brother tells me multi-level marketing is, inevitably, not sustainable.

The most sustainable thing I saw at the whole show was the row of Chiropractors, an “alternative health care modality” that actually cures nothing and has no demonstrable therapeutic value. It is, by definition,  a sustainable industry because no Chiropractor ever said to a customer “this will be our last session: you are cured!”

Despondent with my inability to grasp the green consumer lifestyle, my inability to geti n touch with the sustainability style of my generation, I finally stumbled upon a few businesses with products I could believe in. These products, although no more sustainable than cars or newspapers or Astroturf, had the power, if applied liberally enough, to wipe away all my concerns that I was not keeping up with the true sustainability lifestyle consumers who were going to prevent our consumer driven collapse by creative purchasing.

After a couple of hours at the booths, sipping sample after sample from my compostable plastic sample cup, I walked out of there with a strange rumbling in my gut. I was actually a little nauseous. Then it occurred to me, I may have been in the wrong conference. There were, after all, two going on at the same time at the Convention Centre:

Short post on a positive development

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 5 Comments.

I think this is good news for the City. Yeah, it is just a warehouse, but it is a huge warehouse: at almost 12 acres, it will have a 20% bigger footprint than BC Place. The few dozen jobs it provides are less important than the security of knowing that New Westminster’s largest industrial employer is investing further in the community. It is also good to have brownfields put back into the industrial tax base.

Go ahead, call me a faux environmentalist for saying good things about a stinkin’ paper mill, but Kruger is an example of value-added manufacturing for our domestic renewable resources, and have taken many steps to reduce the environmental impact of their products. Kruger is one of the leading producers of paper products from post-consumer fibres (that stuff you put out in the blue box). Here in New Westminster, they recently invested in a biomass gasification system to vaporize then burn scrap wood and paper and reduce their need for fossil fuels. Making paper can, ultimately, become a sustainable industry, and these small steps are heading that way down that very long road (maybe if we can all stop demanding that the paper we use to wipe our privates is whiter than the drifting snow? Ah, never mind)

As a caveat, any time you talk about a half-million square foot warehouse, you need to talk about how things are going in and out of the warehouse. This may represent a significant amount of truck traffic coming to the area of Queensborough that is already suffering from a freeway pushed through the middle of it and all the congestions, noise and emissions that come with it. The good news is that the Queensborough Landing site has two advantages: an adjacent rail spur, and an adjacent river. The river especially opens up and exciting opportunity: this could be a model situation for short sea shipping. The Kruger plant is 5km from this new warehouse by road (and that includes in increasingly-congested Queensborough Bridge), but it is less than 2km by the North Arm of the Fraser River. Kruger can reduce it’s greenhouse gasses and fuel costs significantly by using small barges to move goods between the two sites along a lightly-used piece of tidewater. This seems like a no-brainer, but I say this without knowing what regulatory nightmares Port Metro Vancouver might put in their way. It seems PMV is more interested in moving trucks around these days than dealing with actual floating things. Kruger has demonstrated an interest in being environmentally innovative in the past, let’s hope they follow through here.

Call it greenwashing if you want, but compared to some industry’s approach to the environment, it is good to see new Westminster’s largest manufacturer taking measurable steps in the right direction.

I’m not just saying that because they sponsor curling. But it helps.

Back to the Blob… ugh

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

There is an ongoing dialogue about the Pier Park going on in the comments section of the News Leader. I have hit this topic several times, have blogged about this topic before, and have actually met Chris Bell to discuss his concerns. But since I opened my fat gob once again to comment online on some comments I see as scare-mongering in Mr. Bell’s letter to the leader, I am now stuck here, blogging on what I see as a non-topic again, just to correct some facts on what I said, and in what Mr. Bell read into it.

The standard caveat: this project is close enough to my professional area that I should probably start by making some sort of declaration of my lack of knowledge. I cannot give a “Professional Opinion” on this topic, mostly because I am not privy to all the information. Everything I know about this project is from the public reports released through City Council and the media. So although I have significant training and experience managing contaminated sites across BC, and a pretty solid understanding of the Contaminated Sites Regulation and the Environmental Management Act, what follows is a personal opinion worth exactly what you paid for it: nothing.

I will go through Mr. Bell’s last comment to me, topic by topic.

“Patrick, you argue that the city showed due diligence before they purchased the pier land.”

The term “due diligence” does not mean you do everything humanly possible to find all available information about a piece of land. The “Due” part means that you do everything that should be reasonably expected to be done, that the effort and resources used coincide with what would typically be done in the industry.

When taking milk out of the fridge, good “due diligence” before handing it to your child to drink would be to check the expiry date, or maybe sniff the open bottle to see if it is rank, and to inspect for signs of curdle as you pour it in the glass. Running a mass spectroscopy analysis or doing an LD50 test on rabbits would probably provide ever further reassurance that the milk was not rotten or tainted with botulism, and is safe to drink, but that would be costly and time consuming, and would exceed “due diligence”.

In a real estate purchase, what is too costly or too time consuming? There is no upper limit to the amount of time and money you could spend investigating a site. You can drill holes and install monitoring wells across every meter of the ground, and still miss a 90cm-across block of uranium. A good rule of thumb for costing out these exercises is that every single monitoring well you install, including drilling costs, sampling, analytical costs for soil and groundwater samples, and all the accessory costs of doing the investigation, costs $5,000. Sometimes you can drill 10 for $30,000, sometimes only 5 cost you $50,000. But $5,000 per hole is a good order-of magnitude back-of-the-envelope guess for investigation costs. So what constitutes “due diligence” at $5,000 a hole?

In reality, we don’t in the industry machine-gun a site with $5000 holes, as potentially profitable as that would be for consultants. Instead, we look at the site history and make some educated guesses about the likelihood of contamination in certain areas, and dedicate our resources to those areas. Prior to the purchase in 2009, the City’s consultant took existing reports on the site (back to 2005), and used those as a basis for further investigation. This launched what is called a Supplementary Phase 2 investigation. They probably could have relied on those existing reports, but instead, they did a little extra diligence and went back to the previously identified “hot spots” and installed more monitoring wells. This, in my personal opinion, represents a level of due diligence consummate with the purchase of former industrial land that would become a park. I might have saved some money and dug some test pits instead of so much drilling, and relied on the existing wells more, but I’m a cheap bastard. I work for government.

Again, in my personal opinion as a taxpayer in New Westminster, this report demonstrates due diligence was performed on the environmental risk prior to the purchase. The City knew, as best as they could with reasonable efforts, what was there, and could make an informed decision about the purchase. You can disagree about the decision they made, that is your right as a voter, but you cannot say they did not exercise due diligence.

“The City has stated that the land purchase cost was reduced by the expected costs of remediation ”about 1.5 million dollars” and yet they ignored their own experts observations that vapour and off-site investigation of the lands to the north of the park must occur before the investigations could be considered complete.”

Let’s look at what the Supplemental Phase 2 report said. They confirmed the soil metals contamination previously identified on site, and that there was no groundwater metals problem. They identified some PAHs that exceeded standards in groundwater. PAH is a catch-all term for a group of petroleum hydrocarbon substances that contain benzene rings (hence the “aromatic” in Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons). These are generally trace constituents or break-down products of oils or fuels, and are common in gas station-type contaminated sites. They are all LNAPLs, so they tend to float on top of (or concentrate towards the top of if dissolved) water. Again, no surprises here, they know they were there from the earlier reports, they were just confirming their concentrations and how things may have changed since the previous reporting time. These substances are also regulated as vapours, but assuming their remediation plan was scooping them up and trucking them away, there was no need to worry too much about the vapour concentrations: if you remove the PAHs, the vapours also go away.

Finally, they confirmed the presence of some DNAPL compounds: the dreaded “Toxic Blob” of Chris Bell’s nightmares. They found them because they knew they were there from the earlier reports. The news here looks good, though. The sampling indicated they were much lower concentration that the previous (2005) sampling, and in fact, they did not exceed the allowable standards. The concentrations were so low, that they did not constitute “contamination”.

The report did indeed say that new (in 2009) Ministry standards would mean that vapours would need to be investigated. However it was not noted as a flaw or a gap in the report, as Mr. Bell suggests, but as a heads-up. The consultant is saying “you had better plan to manage these vapours when you are planning to manage your soil and groundwater”. Removing the PAHs physically would constitute managing the vapours as I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago. As far as the DNAPL solvents, the concentrations are so low in this report, that it is extremely unlikely that vapours will exceed any standards, But they still have to sample them by the regulations. Take a few samples, find acceptable concentrations, apply for a CofC, Bob’s your uncle. I suspect the main reason they threw that warning was that vapour sampling was new at the time, and is both expensive and was technically challenging in 2009 when the new standards had just been adopted (and there was little technical guidance from Ministry), so they had better budget time and money for collecting the samples. There is no suggestion from this report that active remediation or risk management on those DNAPLs would be required. The data just didn’t suggest that.

No-where does that report state that offsite investigation would be required or recommended. Here Mr. Bell is completely wrong. To do intrusive investigations like drilling and digging holes on a site you don’t own, but are considering buying, is a difficult enough legal process to go through (who owns the data? What are the rights and responsibilities of the parties in relation to the data? Who has liability for accidents or property damage? Who has responsibility for the monitoring wells if you decide not to buy?) But to try to secure access to a third-party piece of adjacent land, in which you have no commercial interest, only to prove they might be damaging a piece of land you do not own? That is a ridiculous request, unlikely to be agreed to by the best of neighbours (as they can only lose by allowing it), and I am afraid the Railways are not always the best of neighbours. Any attempt to collect data without their permission would constitute criminal trespass.

“It is the cost of these investigations that added another two to three million dollars to the remediation costs. ”

I don’t know where Mr. Bell’s numbers are coming from, so I cannot comment on them. The “investigations” certainly did not cost millions of dollars, but probably several hundred thousand. Apparently (based on Jim Lowrie’s recent comments) the overall remediation budget has gone over $2 million, and I imagine (but cannot confirm, as I do not have the information) that the engineering, hydrogeology and installation of the bentonite/concrete barrier wall is the majority of that cost. Considering that they had a $1.5 Million reduction on the purchase price because of the environmental concerns, it sounds like they are $500,000 down overall (within contingency according to Lowrie).

But let’s be clear, the DNAPL presence was known, it was investigated, and in 2005 and 2009 the best evidence was that the DNAPL was at a concentration that did not constitute “contamination”, and at the time, the idea that they would need to install a barrier wall was simply not on the table. Something changed in the nature of the contamination between 2009 and 2010, and along with this the standards and requirements for remediation changed. It is safe to say that those changes could not reasonably have been anticipated in 2009 when the due diligence was performed.

“How did ignoring the requirements for off-site and vapour testing show due diligence?”

Already discussed. There were no requirements ignored.

“ The environmental cleanup is over budget… by millions. The City advertised, “…a worst case scenario, all in cost of 1.5 million dollars on environmental cleanup” Millions not spent on cleanup could have been used to build more park infrastructure. “

No, the environmental cleanup is within the contingency budget. Remember, that $1.5 Million is the cost reduction that the City got on the purchase based on the known contamination. If the City did not have to spend that money on clean-up, they would have had to pay that much extra for the land purchase. Because the City did due diligence, it got that reduction in the purchase cost which covered most of the cost for remediation.

It’s your declaration Patrick that, “To make the more strident claim that the City is risking the health and well being of its Citizens and is somehow in cahoots with the Province to expose children and joggers to dangerous chemicals is absurd scare mongering.”
I’ll leave the attack on my character alone…”

And I stand by the statement that claims that the City is risking people’s health in their management of the chlorinated solvents are not only false, they represent fear-mongering. This is not a character attack, it is my assessment of the facts on the ground.

“… and stick to the known threats from the chlorinated solvents along the city owned land along the northern border of the park site. City reports to the Ministry Of Environment state the railway corridor soils are High Risk for chlorinated solvents.”

Here is where Mr. Bell is simply confusing his terms. There is an area of the park designated “High Risk”. That term is very strictly defined by the Ministry of Environment, and there are strict protocols about how it is used and what it means. The money quote from that protocol is this: “If mobile NAPL is present at a site, the site is considered a high risk site.”

The presence of mobile DNAPL at the pier park is what makes the site “High Risk”. Because it is “High Risk”, the City is under more strict reporting guidelines with the Ministry, and the Ministry will ultimately have final sign-off on the cleanup. This is the highest level of Provincial oversight one could hope for.

“People walk/run this corridor as a pathway across New Westminster thus exposing themselves to the toxic soils. “

This is simply untrue. “High Risk” in this case does not mean is that there is any immediate danger to anyone or to anything. It does not mean that the soils are emitting toxic fumes into the air, it does not mean that people are being harmed by the DNAPL.

In risk assessment, the term “pathway” refers to any route through which a contaminant can get to a receptor, be that a person or the environment. Hydrocarbon vapours coming off of soil and being breathed by joggers is a “pathway”. Arsenic in soil getting on your fingers then onto your lunch is a “pathway”. PCBs leaching through the ground and into grass, then being eaten by a cow is a “pathway”. For there to be any threat to a person, there has to be an “open pathway” from the contamination to the person. In the case of the Pier Park, there is no evidence that there is an open pathway. DNAPL dissolved in water 40 feet below the ground simply cannot get into the system of a jogger on the tracks. There is no pathway.

The “risk” here is not a threat to human health, it is the uncertainty related to mobility of the contaminants. Therefore there is now a positive onus on the City to stop that migration and keep track of the contamination, so that they and the Ministry will know if there is ever an “open pathway”, and an actual threat posed by this stuff.

DNAPL 40 feet down will never be a threat to humans, unless they sink a drinking water well at the park (an unlikely scenario). If allowed to migrate, it is possible the contamination will migrate to the bottom of the river (well away from the shore) and impact marine invertebrates, potentially causing a “dead zone” in the river, but unlikely to be harmful to even salmon, as these DNAPLs will be pretty diluted by the river and are not bio-accumulators. I’m not saying this would happen, I’m just trying to imagine a scenario where these things can cause harm to anything.

“The City is stating it has no plans to remediate the toxic railway corridor nor will it put up signs warning the public away from the High Risk contaminated lands. Are these non-actions not risking the health and well being of New Westminster citizens?”

Correct, these non-actions are not risking the health and well-being of New Westminster residents. See above.

The City not only has no responsibility to clean up the Railway lands, I suspect they would not legally be able to. It isn’t their land. Unless it could be demonstrated that the contamination migrated from City land to the railway land, then the Ministry might compel the City to clean up the Railway land, but it would be extremely unusual for the Ministry to do this when there is no human health risk. More likely, the railway would clean up its own land and take the City to court to make them pay for it. Which is exactly what I think the City should do to the railways.

“How you came to the conclusion that I think lowly of the Ministry Of Environment is truly puzzling to me. I praise the Lord for the MOE’S involvement and look forward to their scrutiny of the City’s cleanup efforts if, and when, the City ever sends the required documents to Victoria for review. Why did you state that I have a pitiful view of the MOE when the complete opposite is true?”

Chris, I suspect you misinterpreted my comments, or I gave you a false impression though bad wordsmithing. You stated clearly that you have more faith in MoE than you do the City, and I previously stated that you should therefore feel better about the High Risk determination, as that will result in a higher level of scrutiny from the Ministry.

“I agree with you, Patrick, that the current Mayor and council have invested a lot of political capital on this Pier Park and the Realpolitik negotiations (between the need for complete environmental investigation/remediation and opening the park before the November elections) must be brutal. “

Again, I am not privy to the negotiations going on, but they are going to have to hustle their asses to get a CofC from the Province before November. They may be able to get a release letter that limits how they use the Park and sets strict conditions on the management of soils on the park prior to getting a CofC, the Ministry is starting to get pretty proactive with those. That would essentially allow them to open and use the park without a CofC. But again, I don’t know much about their strategy with managing the site, and the High Risk designation may make that a non-starter.

“The City’s environmental management of the Westminster Pier Park Brownfield has been neither consistent, nor transparent, nor responsible. “

I have seen literally hundreds of these types of projects. In my experience, the City has been consistent and responsible, and have frankly been much more transparent about the process than any corporate client I ever had, and at least as transparent as any government client I ever had. Frankly, I was a little shocked about how much info on this site I could get with few hours on Google. Try that with a Port Metro Vancouver or Kinder Morgan contaminated site…. I do not share Mr. Bell’s criticism here.

“Thankfully, it will be up to the highly skilled Ministry of Environment to decide when the environmental investigations/cleanup are complete although I pray that political deadlines do not trump an in-depth remediation process.”

I’m not a praying type, but I have faith in the professionals doing the work.

Election Day 1

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

As you can read here, I am not a member of any political party, and my votes in the past have gone to candidates from all over the political spectrum. I am political, but pretty non-partisan. Good ideas can come from anyone, just as bad ideas can.

But I am not without biases. I really don’t like Harper’s Conservatives, for several reasons. A good recent example arrived in my electronic mailbox on Thursday.

I am on an Environment Canada mail list for both work and personal interest reasons, mostly because I like to know what my “open and accountable” government is up to. So when this notice arrived in my mailbox (and mailboxes across Canada) at 12:25 PDT on Thursday, I was naturally excited. Apparently the Government was finally going to do something about the damning report they themselves commissioned, then tried to bury, only releasing it a couple of days before Christmas, when everyone is paying attention. I was looking forward to calling in for the announcement, until I realized the actual announcement was in less than 20 minutes, and I would have to “pre-register” by calling the handy number they provided. So they are giving a press conference to no-one, at 3:45 EDT, the day before the Government Falls. Why do I think this is not going to be good news? Open and accountable government? those bastards. Ends up they came up with a “plan” to start monitoring the Tar Sands impacts on the Assiniboine River. No actual timing is mentioned, no actual funding is suggested. Really, there is no evidence they plan to actually do anything, but they have a plan. To start monitoring. Some time. Later. Maybe.

Apparently, I am supposed to vote Liberal, but tomorrow I will be out pounding signs into lawns for a friend representing another party. Not that it matters in this riding, as someone representing yet a third party is the foregone winner. Dilworth’s pre-recorded voice already called me today, and she gave me the canned Party Line. The message offered to hear my questions of I pressed 1, which I dutifully did. They hung up on me. but a pre-recorded message that lies about allowing you to interact: that is pretty much the Conservative Party Line, isn’t it?

So I can sit back and enjoy the election with a slight detachment. 24 hours in to the election, and Ignatieff has already made a strategic blunder.

This coalition thing is a smokescreen, it is just more of the Politics of Fear that Steve learned from his Southern Friends. As long as they are trying to paint a coalition as the Worst Possible Thing That Could Happen™, none of the real issues are going to come to the forefront.

So to deny that a coalition is up for consideration serves three purposes: It reinforces the false notion that it is the Worst Possible Thing That Could Happen™; it limits his options if the polls don’t start improving soon; and it lets Harper control the conversation.

The only appropriate response to this type of bullshit is to turn it around on him. Say something like:

“I am campaigning for a Liberal Majority Government, because I think that would be the best result for all Canadians. That said, Mr. Harper is going to have to explain to Canada why a stable coalition of willing Parliamentarians, working together to represent the interests of the majority of Canadians is somehow “less stable” than yet another fragile minority government, unwilling to work with anyone or hear any diversity of voices, desperate enough to hold on to the reigns of power that they would rather prorogue Parliament that listen to the will of the people.”

Boom.

Pier Park Redeux

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

We got a little more info the last two weeks on the ongoing non-story of Pier Park contamination, and each little bit of info we get fills a few more gaps. I have to throw out the standard caveat here: although I have spent most of the last decade working on contaminated sites investigation and management in one capacity or another, I do not have the technical knowledge about this site to offer any “professional” opinions on it. Everything I know about this site is from the Council Reports and stories in the local media. So the following is a personal opinion based on incomplete knowledge, so treat it for what it is worth (approximately equal to what you paid for it).

So far we have had the February 14 update report to Council, and in March Chris Bell gave a delegation to Council raising his concerns about the ongoing remediation at the park, and we have seen an update on the Park and an interview with the project manager in the local papers.

First the update. It seems the (presumably shallow) soils have been remediated, and there is ongoing progress on the scrap metal “mounds”. The groundwater contamination plume (I will avoid the pejorative “toxic blob”) has been delineated (which means they have drilled holes all around it, sampled all of those wells, and found them clean), so they can now definitively say where the contamination is and where it is not. It is all within a 350 m^2 area, and they are between 40 and 50 feet below the surface. The highest concentrations are on the adjacent property, and if the groundwater flows towards the river (a safe assumption at that depth), then we can say the chlorinated solvents came from the adjacent property and migrated on to the Park Site through groundwater flow.

It is pretty clear the presence of these “DNAPL” chlorinated solvents was a surprise. It is extremely unlikely that this plume would have been discovered in any “Stage 1” or “Stage 2” Preliminary Site Investigation of the site, the type of investigation one would do prior to purchasing or developing such a site. From what I can interpret from the available reports, they bumped into this stuff while trying to do some depth-delineation of known contamination on the site. Such is the nature of the Contaminated Sites Regulations, though, that they have found it, they need to deal with it in order to get a certificate from the Ministry of Environment for the site.

These are liquid hydrocarbon solvents (likely carbon tetrachloride or tetrachloroethylene or the sort) that are heavier than water, so they sink to the bottom of the groundwater column in which they are dumped (much like the vinegar in your salad dressing drops down below the olive oil). This stuff is toxic to the environment, and potentially harmful to people, yes. Most chlorinated solvents are an irritant in low concentrations, harmful to organs like the brain to the liver in higher concentrations, and potentially carcinogenic with long-term exposure, kind of like the stuff you put in your gas tank every day or the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon smog you are exposed to walking through cosmetics section of the Bay. Toxic, but not the worst thing known to man. You can walk into Canadian tire and purchase Tetrochloroethylene for cleaning your brakes, and prior to the Montreal Protocol, you could buy Carbon Tetrachloride for everything from killing ants to running your refrigerator (but we called it Freon when using it for the latter). Mostly, they are common drycleaning chemicals.

Honestly, I cannot comment on the budget part of the update, as I am not up to speed on the budget history of this site. It is possible that this DNAPL plume is going to expand the budget of the park, but Jim Lowrie assures us it is within the “contingency” budget. Before we start yelling boondoggle, remember two things: this DNAPL was almost certainly unexpected and unpredictable, and that is what contingency budgets are for: contingent on the unexpected happening. Second, this extra cost is potentially 100% recoverable from whoever owns the property that is the source of the contamination. At this point, the concerned taxpayer would say “well, then make them clean it up!” Unfortunately, there is no way under the Contaminated Sites Regulations that the City or anyone else can force the owner of the source property to clean up the City’s property. What the City can do is clean it up, and then send the bill to the owner of the source property. They have to do it through the civil courts, but if managing this DNAPL really costs the City $1 million as some have suggested, and we can prove it came from off-site, then it should be pretty simple to recover those costs. But first, the City actually has to spend the money before it can ask for compensation. You may not like that, but it is Provincial law.

Now onto Mr. Bell’s concerns. I have met with Mr. Bell and discussed this issue with him. I respect him for his concern for the community, his persistence, and for speaking out about an issue that is relevant to all of us in the City. Just by asking questions publicly and making sure this issue stays in front of mind (if not on the front page of the Record), he is providing more impetus to the City and their consultants to make sure their “i”s are dotted and the “t”s are crossed, and to make sure the public is kept updated on what is happening down there (remember, all of these reports will be public information eventually, so the City has nothing to lose by sharing them with us). That said, just because Chris is constantly asking questions doesn’t mean the answers are not adequate.

You can hear his delegation to council here (he starts about 1:03 in and the conversation goes on for about 15 minutes).

First, it seemed a bit flippant by Mr. Lowrie, but Madame Railjogger is almost certainly much more endangered by trains and car/truck exhaust jogging along Front Street than from vapours from the DNAPL plume. My guess based on how they are managing this plume (barrier wall), is that the surface vapours will be “risk assessed”, and the City is confident the Ministry will agree there is no unacceptable risk. With all hydrocarbons, there are separate standards for vapours rising up through the soils, based on the potential health effects of people breathing those vapours. In this case, the amount of vapour produced at depth will be small, but not negligible. However, those vapours will have to rise up through a significant saturated water column, maybe 35 feet thick, then through another 15 feet of unsaturated soils before reaching the surface, all along the way being both degraded and diluted. By the time these vapours hit the surface where Madame Railjogger is working out, they are likely to be diluted to non-detectable levels. However, even if this was not the case, the park will not be getting a certificate from the Ministry of Environment until that potential pathway is assessed. If there are vapours getting to the surface, then they will be required to put a barrier in place, but in this case, that looks pretty unlikely.

Second, my turn to be flippant: Just because Mr. Bell and the Mayor don’t understand hydrogeology, it doesn’t mean no-one else does. These contaminants are heavier than water; when dropped in a column of water, they sink. I’m not sure what Mr. Bell is calling “hardpan”, but New Westminster is underlain by permeable and semi-permeable materials for tens of metres, or more. DNAPL, when dropped in the groundwater, will go down until it hits a layer of sediment that is not permeable, then it will stay there (vertically), while spreading out on the impermeable surface, and even flow downhill along that surface if there is a slope or a groundwater flow to push it along. The Spring floods (freshet) will never cause the contaminants to rise to the surface, like they would if this was LNAPL (that is, hydrocarbons lighter than water). Placing a u-shaped barrier (described by Mr. Bell as a “fish weir”) may work perfectly fine to stop the flow of the contaminants downhill (i.e. towards the River), as long as the DNAPL cannot flow under the wall, build up to sufficient thickness to flow over the wall, or have a reason to change flow direction and go around the wall. Bentonite / concrete walls l are extremely effective, and have been used for dozens of years, in thousands of applications; the technology is well understood, effective, and reliable. Assuming there is good hydrogeology behind it, it should be the best solution here. The only pathway to people or the environment is to go sideways into the river bottom, then leak out into the river. The barrier wall will stop this from happening. The plume won’t go anywhere, it will be kept stable in place where it can do no harm. Eventually (over many, many decades I suspect) it will dissolve away, biodegrade, and otherwise break down, but no active measures will be taken to physically remove the stuff.

Third: with the contamination ‘contained’, is it a threat to the park, my puppy, my kids? Simple answer is no. This stuff is stable and is a long way down. Your child will not be able to touch this stuff, drink water contaminated with it, or breathe vapours coming off of it. With a barrier wall, this stuff will not migrate to river sediment and get into the food chain of the Pacific Salmon. There is no reasonable way that this stuff is going to get to your kid’s system. Since there will be residual contamination on the site, there will need to be a Human Health Risk Assessment demonstrating that this residual material poses no health risks prior to the City getting a certificate for the park from the Province. With the Risk managed, there is no reason people cannot live, work and play on top of a contained DNAPL plume with no risk to their health.

And that is a significant point; the Province is overseeing this work. The City and their Contractor don’t need to reassure me to move forward, nor do they have to convince Mr. Bell that everything is on the up-and-up. They need to convince the Ministry of Environment. Mr. Bell mentions in his delegation that he trusts the MoE to provide oversight, and that is what he is getting. The MoE will not issue a certificate for the Park unless they are convinced from the science on the ground that there is no risk to human health or the environment. I don’t know what else to ask for from the environmental side.

So, in summary, I remain unconcerned about the contamination issue in the Pier Park. If Mr. Bell wants to continue to make an issue of this, he might be better served chasing down the cost overrun issue, or the process for public consultation around the spending. I’m not an accountant, I don’t know much about that side of the thing, so I am best to avoid that (go to moneynewwest.blogspot.com, maybe they can help). Also, as a taxpayers, I hope the people making decisions for the City are motivated to try to recover as much of the contamination mitigation costs from the railway or whomever caused the DNAPL plume in the first place. Keep in mind 100% of this money should be recoverable from the “persons responsible” for the contamination, or the landowner from whom we received this contamination, if the City chooses to pursue those costs. I think it is important that our tax dollars not be used to clean up someone else’s spill incident, if that someone else is still around to pay for the cleanup. That is where I am looking for fiscal responsibility on this one.

Water fight!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I’m getting a little tired and punchy over The story that just won’t die. What started as an effort to reduce the environmental impact of bottled water in our schools has turned into one of the silliest political debates in the city since… hmmm… I can’t think of sillier one.

I should declare my bias here, since conflict of interest is such a big part of this. I have already publicly declared my opinion that bottled water is one of the most egregious examples of the victory of cleaver marketing over common sense, good economics, and sustainability. Not on par with smoking in the personal-health-risk department, but probably more damaging on a global heath risk, and no less stupid. So my bias is that I agree with the students on this one, not the Board of Education.

I don’t know Lori Watt, I had never met her before the infamous school board meeting where the latest motion on bottled water was discussed. Frankly, I was not impressed with her unprofessional manner at the meeting, but it is not like being unprofessional stood out in that completely dysfunctional organization, where most if not all of the members have lost touch with what they are there to do. Speaking as an adult, I was embarrassed to have the students in the audience watch their elected representatives act like that. So for the two “slates” on the board, I say a pox on all your houses.

However, the claims of “conflict of interest” in this case seem a bizarre stretch, legal opinion notwithstanding. During the last election for Board of Education, Lori Watt worked as a staffer for CUPE, and was a member of COPE, and CUPE contributed to her campaign (as they did to Trustee Ewen and Trustee Janzen). These are not secrets, nor do they preclude her for running for the Board. People voted for her in spite of (or in some cases, I am sure, because of) these associations. Labour Unions are political organizations, just as multinational corporations are. They have political interests, and put their support behind those that reflect them. Watt is a member of a labour union (like about 30% of Canada’s working population), and quite possibly shares some of the same political ideas as the Union does. It is possible she even goes to Union Meetings and takes part in the democratic process of setting those policies. Of course, she can’t vote one CUPE policies, only COPE ones.

Note also that New Westminster is a “union-friendly” City. There are numerous union offices in town, the population mix is decidedly working class, and it is a longstanding labour-NDP stronghold since before the days when Tommy Douglas represented New Westminster in Ottawa. It is entirely possible that Lori Watt’s labour connection helped her get elected: that people voted for her because of her union affiliation. These people are her constituency: like it or not, that is representative democracy.

So a member of the Board of Education, elected as a union member, put forward a motion for a policy change, seconded by Trustee Graham (who did not receive CUPE funding) and supported by all members of the board, that happened to reflect the expressed interests of her constituency. That is the conflict of interest? Conflict of interest is now putting forward a motion reflecting the interests of her constituency that was immediately supported by the rest of the board? Huh? Is there any suspicion that she personally gained financially from this? Did she short-sell her PepsiCo stocks prior to this motion coming forward? If she didn’t bring the motion forward, would she be fired from her union job? Where was her gain here? Excuse the French, but this is so much ado about sweet fuck all.

But what of the legal opinion, you ask? Given sufficient money, I could have a legal opinion drafted up that says the sky is not blue and the ocean is not wet. When one of the world’s largest bottled-water selling multinational corporations (Nestle) pays for a legal opinion from the same law firm that represents another one of the world’s largest bottled-water-selling multinational corporations (PepsiCo), and that opinion comes back in favour of the position of the bottled-water-selling multinational corporations, are we to be surprised? We should be no less surprised that the Board’s own legal opinion said there was not conflict. Legal opinions are like children: there is no limit to how many you can have, even if you can’t afford them, and everyone thinks their own is the best.

Since we are on the topic of conflict of interest: we know O’Connor received some financial assistance from Nestle for his supposedly one-man grassroots campaign against Watt. We know there were other, so far unnamed, financial contributors, willing to spend money to support one failed Board of Education candidate, as the “public face” of the fight. Receiving secret funding to wage a personal campaign? No possibility of conflict there. If O’Connor was really concerned about openness and accountability, he would declare just how many people contributed to his “grassroots” campaign, and how he got the address of PepsiCo’s favourite law firm. Still, I have yet to hear Patrick O’Connor mention anything about the interests of students (remember them?) in this entire debate. It is pretty ugly on the face of it.

I am afraid the local “Voice for openness and accountability” is on the wrong side of this fight. They threw another shot across the bow last week in the form of a letter from the President to the News Leader, praising the Board for making a “balanced and thoughtful” decision on this matter. It is clear Neil was not in the room witnessing those discussions, as there was clearly little thought put into the fall-back position this board came to.

However, there are two things I think get lost in the language, but not the spirit, of Neil’s letter, and I hope to clarify them: the health concerns of NWSS water, and “freedom of choice”, two arguments used by Voice Board of Education Members, and reinforced by the Gentleman™ from Nestle™ at that board meeting.

During the meeting, there were three people expressing the opinion that the water at NWSS was not safe: Trustee Cook, whose nuanced argument included reference to a video he apparently saw on YouTube and a headline from the Vancouver Sun that he took out of context to create the perception that school water was laden with killer lead; The Gentleman™ from Nestle™ who made vague references to “immune-deficient people”; and some guy named “Paul” from the DPAC, who I didn’t know, but I seem to recall him saying something about commies and our precious bodily fluids:

But the funniest moment was shortly after this when Trustee Goring suggested (without a hint of irony) we need to educate the youth better, because he didn’t know where these rumours were coming from amongst the students that the water was unsafe…when there were numerous youth in the room arguing for a ban on bottled water, and it was only a few misinformed (or misinforming?) adults making these ridiculous claims…

For the record, the public health officer did not say the tap water at the school was unsafe. She suggested that a ban on bottled water should be applied concurrently with a ban on all single-serving drinks, including juices and sodas. Note, she was not arguing to maintain “freedom of choice”, but to remove all choices, leaving the school with only tap water, as this would be the healthiest alternative.

Which brings us to freedom of choice. This was big part of the Gentleman™ from Nestle™ argument, and something Trustee Cook was all over: give the students choice, and educate them to make the right choice. The false choice thing aside (with no facilities to easily fill refillable bottles, and big, glowing, pop machines everywhere you look in the school, just what is the message students are being given?) why would we give the students a choice that is the opposite of the recommendation of the public health officer? I am sure the public health officer would not suggest we install cigarette machines, then let the students “choose” not to smoke. Part of an education system is empowering the students to make the right choice by providing respite from the constant media bombardment to do the wrong thing. How do we effectively teach them to make the rational choice when we turn around and take money from a global multinational to advertise the irrational choice in the teaching environment?

On an almost completely unrelated note, you might have noticed this story about how Pepsi has slipped to #3 in the “Cola Wars”. Frankly, I don’t care what brand of malted battery acid you drink, but one number popped out to me: the United States annually consumes 1.6 billion cases of Coke. A “case” is an industry measure, equal to 24 x 8-oz containers, or 192 oz. That means the USof freaking A consumes 9.1 Billion Litres of Coke a year. To put this number in perspective, if you were to fill a 10-foot-deep swimming pool with this volume of Coke, the pool would need to be as wide as a CFL Football Field, and more than 100 km long! And that is just Coke Classic, we haven’t even thought about the Dr. Pepper effect. Freedom of choice indeed.

So, if the Board of Education was really concerned about the student’s health, they would immediately adopt the public health officer’ recommendation (see the recommendation here, on page 20) and begin the phasing out of vending machines in the schools. It is clear that the public health officer thinks tap water, supplied by Metro Vancouver and regulated by Vancouver Coastal Health is the helathiest, safest alternative. If Patrick O’Connor is really interested in cultivating his position as “maverick community activist” and not a bought-and-paid hack for Multinational Corporations, then he should stop taking their shadowy money, and if Voice is really interested in open and accountable governance, they should probably be backing away from this issue and Mr. O’Connor completely.

Oh, and everybody: apologise to the damn students for being such idiots.

On Farmers Markets and Clean Bins

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The Royal City Farmers Market is one of the Jewels in the crown of the revitalized Royal City, and it is just the kind of grass-roots community building organization that the NWEP exists to support. The RCFM has grown and prospered to such a scale that it hardly resembles the nascent organization that appeared only a couple of years ago. Current RCFM President Andrew Murray and a core team of volunteers and staff have made the Market a weekly ritual for Queens Park, Downtown and Brow residents, while attracting customers and hangers-on from Sapperton the West End, and other parts of the City.

The introduction of monthly indoor Winter Markets last year was rewarded with great crowds, as the combination of preserves, prepared foods, crafts made up for the lack of variety of farm-fresh local veggies and fruit we are used to in the summer.

Last year’s Fundraiser at the Heritage Grill was most memorable for the apologies the staff and volunteers were handing out for the overwhelming response. The place was so crowded, that it took longer than usual to get drinks or the meals prepared. But no-one was complaining as the music and the company were great, as was the charity auction.

This year, the RCFM folks have decided to spice up their Societies-Act -mandated Annual General Meeting with a screening of the film “The Clean Bin Project”. I haven’t seen the film, but am aware of the filmmakers and their project to go without producing waste for one year, as the Glenbrook North Zero Waste Challenge folks were all over the story.

Apparently the movie is inspirational and refreshing in that the do-gooders in the central role don’t take themselves to seriously, or even try to suggest this is a viable option for most people. It is just intended to be an eye-opener to a subject that we all take for granted:

The Clean Bin Project – Trailer from Grant Baldwin Videography on Vimeo.

So, go to the RCFM AGM, and see what a dedicated group of community activists can create.

See the Clean Bin Movie screening, and see what a couple of dedicated local activists can achieve.

Support the next RCFM Winter Market, on February 12th.

I’m back.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Rested, refreshed, with eyes opened and lessons learned. An educational vacation, as they all should be.

Seems there was a lot going on when I was away. The City somehow found a way to both say “no” and “maybe” on the UBE (no surprise there). My buddy John Baird decided to finally release the independent report on Oil Sands impacts, and he did it a few days before Christmas to make sure it got the maximum possible exposure. The Tea Party finally got violent. And the Canucks didn’t lose a single regulation game.

I will resume almost-daily blogging in the next few days, but in the short term, here is the short interview I did with the News Leader before I left, as part of their Year in Review – Looking Forward series, called “2011 Hopes and Plans”, along with some expanded comments in italics that didn’t fit the word-count requirements of printed-on-dead-trees format.

Q: Were there any surprises for you in New Westminster environmental issues during 2010?
The immediate success of the Clean Green organic waste collection. The system was rolled out with surprisingly few problems, and the early returns show a huge reduction in “trash” the city has to ship to the landfill or the Burnaby incinerator. This is better for the environment, and will save taxpayers money in the long run. City council and staff deserve kudos for making this work.
The surprise is the immediacy of the success, not the success itself. There was a concurrent news story about the measure of the success: the huge decrease in garbage going to the curb, and the huge increase in green waste going to the compost facility. Kristian Davis from the City deserves the bulk of the credit for this success, it was a complicated program to administer and the roll out went amazingly smooth. The fact he became a new dad in the middle of the roll-out no doubt made for some stressful days.

Q: What do you think is the most pressing local environmental issue now?
Transportation. The United Boulevard Extension is on the front page now, but the NFPR and Pattullo Bridge replacement are elephants in the room. It is imperative that the city stop taking a wait-and-see approach and come out with a strong vision, backed by policy, that makes clear what the city will and will not accept for transportation routes through our neighbourhoods. Nothing will have more impact on the liveability of our city in the decades to come.
The UBE issue is the beginning of this debate, not the end. The City is phasing up for an update of the Master Transportation Plan; the Pattullo is apparently on hold, but with Falcon running for Premier, it will no doubt be coming back at a politically advantageous time; the Evergreen Line is still delayed; the train bridge over the Fraser needs replacement; no-one knows how they will fit 3 rails, 4 lanes of “truckroute” and a Pier Park between the River and the buildings on Front Street; and I don’t see any leadership from our local on this file.

Q: What are your plans to help address this, or other, issues in the new year?
The NWEP have an active transportation group, and brought together regional experts on the topic for a forum in November. It is important that the eventual shift to alternative modes of transportation is not forgotten in the current debate about congestion and goods movement in our city. Our role is to engage stakeholders, politicians, and the public, and keep this open conversation going. I hope we can make this “Topic #1” in the upcoming civic elections in November 2011.
We also have people on the Traffic Advisory, Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory, and Environmental Advisory Committees. We are coordinating an approach to the Master Transportation Plan, and hope it will include real alternatives to building more road capacity. Not by protesting or writing inflammatory rhetoric, but by engaging the decision makers and providing them the information they need to make more sustainable choices, and stand behind those choices.

Q: What would be the best thing that could happen in your sector in 2011?
Our federal and provincial leaders taking real action to address climate change. We have a provincial government that is aware of the issue, but decides to spend billions on freeways anyway. The federal government has a head-in-the-(tar)sand attitude about the whole thing. It is becoming an embarrassment.
It just gets worse. Baird’s performance in Cancun was ugly. I had people in other countries actually ask me what the hell is wrong with Canada on this topic.


Q: The worst thing?
The province approving Metro Vancouver’s plan to expand trash incineration, in the face of massive public opposition. Burning garbage is not a sustainable way to make electricity, or a sustainable way to manage solid waste. With local backers pushing to locate the incinerator in New Westminster, this debate is going to come back to our front yard this year.
It verges upon rumour-mongering at this point, but the suspicions about our Mayor’s desire for locating an incinerator on the Canfor lands won’t go away. With Barry Penner off the file, the Minister of Environment has no reason to not approve incinerators, and after that it will be up to Metro Vancouver to decide the location. Sapperton Residents may find the UBE debate was just training for the real political fight they have ahead.

Q: What are your hopes for the community in the new year that have the best chances of actually happening?
Increased awareness. Sapperton residents are engaged in the UBE debate, a group in Glenbrook North completed a groundbreaking Zero Waste Challenge, Green Drinks are a happening event, community gardens are cropping up: we are at a tipping point where people are realising living “greener” actually means living better. We are starting to see “environmentalism” as improving our quality of life, not threatening it.
The good news is that our Cities are becoming “greener” every year, because that is what the voters want. People like clean air, clean water, green space, less traffic, lower taxes, all the things sustainability initiatives can bring (example: green bins). The NWEP keeps hearing from different people from different walks of life who want to make a difference. I am actually really positive about the years ahead.

Q: Give us your wildest and craziest prediction?
Besides a Canucks-Canadiens final?
Note that I wrote this back in the end of November, when the Canucks were in 4th in the West and the Habs were in 5th overall. I picked the Habs because I’d love to see an all-Canadian final as much as Gary Bettman would hate it, and neither Ottawa nor Toronto are going to make the Playoffs. It helps that my Dad is a Habs fan, and watching each other’s teams lose brings us together as a family.
Now, I’m not one to plan parade routes prematurely, but I will be in the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the first week of June, so if the Canucks are playing Hockey in June… I might miss it!