Tag: Politics

Geology and Climate Denial

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 12 Comments.

In one of my earlier lives, I was a geologist.

Once a geologist, you sort of always are a geologist. It gets in your brain. I am going down the Grand Canyon next week with a friend who happens to be a Professor of Earth Sciences, and we plan to spend a lot of time cracking rocks and talking stratigraphy. I have already downloaded geologic sections and taken prep notes on the major units, their interpreted settings and anticipated trace fossil assemblages. I do this stuff for fun. However, in an earlier life, I actually did geology for a living, not as a hobby.

 As a geologist, I was member of the Geological Association of Canada, attended several of their meetings, and even presented at one of them (and had my presentation topic expanded into a paper in a special volume of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences published by the GAC).
 As a sedimentology student, I also read a whole lot of Andrew Miall. His “Principles of Sedimentary Basin Analysis” is in every sedimentologist’s bookcase, along with a raft of his papers on fluvial sedimentology (the deposits left by rivers). I cited that book and two other Miall papers in my Masters thesis, relying on his descriptions of alluvial fan deposits to interpret some of the facies in my field area, his description of bi-modal clast distributions resulting from traction flows, and his interpretations of peripheral foreland basin deposit sequences. He is a giant on the subject of the geology of terrestrial sedimentary basins, and a petroleum geologist of significance world-wide, not just in Canada.
 So it is remarkably disappointing to read about this year’ Annual GAC meeting, and to see the symposium entitled “Earth Climate: past, present, and future”, chaired by none other than Andrew Miall.
 The subject itself is topical, interesting, and well within the scope of geology (Geologists are the most qualified to interpret historical climate indicators, working with paleontologists, palynologists, isotope geochemists, and other fields that fit loosely under the big tent of Geology- the study of the solid earth.) The problem arrives in the outline for the symposium . Every line of it makes me cringe: 

“The scientific debate about climate change is far from over.”

Lifting this language right from the Climate Denier playbook, it is clear from the opening line the approach that will be taken below. This line pre-supposes that there is a single debate about Climate Change, and by that supposition, the two positions are: A) humans are definitely causing unprecedented changes in the earth’s climate by their burning of carbon-based fossil fuels and the nations of the word need to take immediate and drastic action to reduce atmospheric CO2 or face significant social, environmental and economic consequences; and B) wrong. 

“Some of the projections of climate change and its consequences contained in the 2007 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been called into question.”

Ugh. Yes they have. Admittedly, the 2007 report put out by the IPCC got a few things wrong, or failed to fully support a few of the statements within. And there has been a lot of science done since 2007, some of which matches the IPCC projections, some of it that suggests the IPCC projections were pessimistic, and the majority suggesting the IPCC projections underestimated the scale of the problem. But the IPCC report is a single document in a sea of research, and of all the documents, it is the most politically tainted. Why single this one out for discussion in a scientific meeting in 2011?

“This symposium will address some of these issues and present a geological perspective on the scientific debate. “

Good, Geology has lots to say about historic climate conditions. Sounds like an important topic to discuss.

“For example, what is the relative importance of water vapour versus carbon dioxide as a medium of heat retention in the atmosphere?”

Huh!?! H2O vs. CO2 in the atmosphere? How is that a geologic topic? This is simple chemistry and physics, we know H2O is a larger greenhouse gas than CO2, no geology required. The only reason this topic is being brought up is because it is a favourite amongst climate deniers, even after it has been thoroughly debunked. This topic has no relation whatsoever to the “climate debate”, it is a red herring. 

“How important have variations in solar output and in sunspot levels been in determining energy input to the Earth’s atmosphere?”

Huh!?! Is this even a debate? More solar output means more input to the Earth’s atmosphere, the relationship is linear. This is not a debate (and not really a geology topic either, although some geologic methods allow estimation of historic solar output directly or by proxy). Another red herring. Of course, this is not in any way relevant to the current observed warming, but they digress. 

“Is the current global temperature regime now warmer than the Medieval Warm Period or the Holocene Hypsithermal?”

OK, This is an excellent topic for geologic investigation. We should be able to use our multiple lines of geologic evidence (although these events are so recent, it is more pedology than geology) to determine the straight-forward answer to this question. I’m not sure what the relevance is… oh, wait, here it comes….

“This is a significant question, given that many damaging ecological, faunal and weather changes have been predicted based on such warming. Yet Earth and its assemblage of life forms clearly survived these and even earlier exceptionally warm periods.”

Here is where the real intellectual dishonesty comes in. Yep, the Earth survived climate change in the past. Actually, at the end of the Maastrichtian, it survived a pretty big climate disruption. Of course nothing larger than a chicken survived, all the planet’s apex predators were killed, the dominant form of sea life was made extinct, along with 90% of vertebrate species, but hey, the earth and life went on. That said, I don’t think any of us want to experience that type of event in our lifetime.

As for the events he actually cited, the MWP was probably (and I say probably, as there is actually some debate in the mainstream scientific community on this) not warmer than today globally. It was certainly as warm as today in Northern Europe, and certainly cooler than today in regions of the tropical south Pacific, but the global temperature average is not as well established. It is also important to know that start and end of the MWP in northern Europe were gradual events, taking centuries for any change to become apparent, and they nonetheless cause huge disruptions to society, to food supplies, and to the natural environment. The current measured warming is happening at a rate 50-100x that rate. How will we adapt this time? 

“Is it possible that other causes, such as the density and ubiquity of the human presence on Earth, rather than climate change, may be the cause of the observed deterioration in many environmental indicators?”

Huh? Is this a geologic topic? Is this really what a bunch of mineral and petroleum geologists should be studying? And what the hell is implied by the question? That overpopulation and resource use are problems we need to worry about, instead of worrying about climate change? How about we worry about both, and recognize they are both the same freaking problem!

Ok, so Miall wrote a provocative abstract to attract an audience to his symposium. You don’t get to be an eminent Petroleum geologist with out a few sales skills. Luckily, the GAC provides abstracts on-line , so we can look through the actual presentations and pick out the real science here. Should be fun, and I will more in future posts.

But as a satart, let’s look at hte Keynote: Oh, oh. It started bad. I see the Keynote is noted Australian climate denier (and mining geologist) Ian Plimer . Looking at Plimer’s Abstract does not instill confidence. Check out how in the last paragraph, instead of summarizing findngs and speculating on implications, as one is wont to do in a scientific abstract, he uses it to pile up non-sequitor climate denier catch phrases…

“Humans have adapted to live on ice, in mountains, in the desert, in the tropics and at sea level and can adapt to future changes. During interglacials, humans have created wealth; populations grow; glaciation is heralded by famine, starvation, disease, depopulation. Humans, although not the dominant biomass of Earth, have changed the surface of the planet. Pollution kills, CO2 is plant food, H2O vapour is the main greenhouse gas. Climate models throw no new light on climate processes”

 In order, that paragraph can be summarized as:

  • Climate change isn’t a problem, we’ll adapt! (debatable) 
  • Global warming is good! (ridiculous) 
  • People have impacted the planet in many ways! (non-sequitor)
  • Pollution is bad! (generally true, but irrelevant)
  • CO2 is good, so it can’t be pollution! (does the same go for zinc?)
  • Water vapour is the problem! (demonstrably not true)
  • Climate models don’t work! (bullshit. how does he feel about mineral deposit models?

He actually pre-emptively Gish Gallops. Loads on the BS so thick, it would take more than a 40 minute keynote to address how wrong his thinking is.

I will opine more as I get time to go through the other abstracts, but I want to leave with an paraphrased quote I once heard from a paleoclimatologist I know:

“AGW is founded in Physics, all was can don in geology is test it. Unfortunately, every time geology and physics have disagreed in the past, it was always the physics that had it right”

more MSP

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

When I posted this story last week, I started by saying it needed more press. Well it made it to the front page of the Sun, but it seems to read like a good news story. The province saving money be “recovering health care costs”. What’s wrong with that?

I mentioned my concern that the Province could sue if you have an accident, to cover your medical costs. Not sue you (you are insured), but sue anyone who might be “at fault”. Of course they don’t have to prove the person is at fault, just make a compelling enough case that your insurance company pays them off to go away (“settles out of court”). If the person being sued has insurance. Anyone who has heard the frightening stories of tort-law craziness in the States should be looking at this.

I know what you are saying: if it is someone’s fault, they should pay! I explained in my earlier post how that person may be someone who you wouldn’t hold at fault, but the government might. My “exaggerated” examples were the company that runs a Mountain Bike Park that you like to use but where you crashed, or your grandmother if you slip and fall on her porch while shovelling it. I thought they were slightly silly examples that effectively made the “skinny end of the wedge” argument.

In fact, look at the story from the Sun:

“…a slip and-fall incident resulted in a $63,000 recovery and a mountain bike accident resulted in a $53,000 recovery. “

Yikes! They were way ahead of me. My exaggeration has failed to anticipate reality!

Do you have a business where the public may enter your store? Do you coach a softball team? Do you volunteer in a cycling organization? Sell bicycles? Manufacture or sell any product that might hurt someone if used incorrectly? Ever leave your house?

You should be very concerned about this.

MSP hires more Lawyers

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

This little news story needs to get more press.

Apparently the Provincial Government has decided to cover Health Costs by giving money to Lawyers. At first glance, the politics of “suing those responsible” sounds like the kind of thing fiscally-prudent Governments should do. But read the story: a drunk driver hits a pedestrian, and the Provincial Government is suing a municipality for not having a crosswalk!?! So provincial taxpayers are paying lawyers to battle in court against lawyers working for a local government’s taxpayers … to save taxes?

But this is only a single silly example, that distracts from the real evil of the Health Care Cost Recovery Act. Am I the only one scared by this:

“The Third Party Liability Department is responsible for the recovery of health care costs when a British Columbia resident is injured due to a third party’s wrongful act or omission for both motor vehicle accidents and non motor vehicle accidents. For example: Injuries occurring from negligence involving incidents/accidents such as but not limited to slip and falls, boating, air and rail accidents, swimming, diving, skiing, explosion, fire, falling objects, and Class Actions.

The Provincial Government is now going to hire lawyers to go to court and sue someone (anyone?) to recover costs related to your slipping and falling, swimming, or skiing. If you are not scared yet, read on:

Let me tell you the story of a friend of mine.  One day we were riding our mountain bikes at Town Run Trail Park in Indianapolis. How we got there is not all that important (I was once an incredibly mediocre mountain bike racer in Indiana), but my riding partner had a pretty serious crash. Serious enough that there was an ambulance ride involved.

Now my friend and I both lived in an adjacent State, so the hospital she was sent to wanted to know how she was paying the moment she arrived. Luckily, she was gainfully employed and through her employer, was in a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO), a for-profit healthcare insurance plan. Once that was sorted out, she got very good care, as you would expect when they are charging you $1.50 a gauze and $1500 an X-ray (why scrimp?). She was not all that concerned as a) she had health care coverage; and b) she was pretty seriously concussed.

When she got home, she sent the 4-figure bill for the Hospital and the 3-figure bill for the Ambulance to her HMO, and after sending them her “co-pay” of a few hundred dollars, they paid for her care. That’s what you get for the thousand or so dollars that she and her employer paid every month to the HMO to keep her insured. What we call “health care”.

A few months later, she started to get letters and phone calls from a lawyer asking questions about her accident. She was reluctant to answer anything until they said they were working with her HMO. In that case, she asked for more details, and they explained they were seeing if there was anyone willing to share the liability. That is the euphemism they used “willing to share the liability”. At this point, she told them to get bent.

You see, her HMO had “sold” her accident to a lawyer. To recover the costs that the for-profit HMO had paid the for-profit hospital, they had sold the liability to a for-profit leech. The leech was looking for someone to sue. Anyone. Presumably, they could go after Giant Bicycles for making the bike, or Bell Helmets for not offering adequate protection, but those sound like big entities with their own raft of lawyers. It became apparent from their line of questioning (Where were you on the trail? Was the trail bumpy? Were there any warning signs? ) that they were interested in going after the people who ran the bike park.

Now, I ride a mountain bike a lot. I have fallen off of my mountain bike a lot (that is how you get to be good enough to be an incredibly mediocre racer in the mountain-bereft state of Indiana). Every time I went over the bars, I knew it was my fault. Either I overestimated my skill, or I underestimated the trail, or I got cocky, or I failed to check if my front wheel was attached. It would never occur to me to sue the person who set up and maintained a mountainbike trail system. Just like I didn’t sue the Ski Hill when I was concussed in a ski crash, and didn’t sue the beach resort when I broke my shoulder body surfing. Why? Because I like to mountain bike, I like to ski, I like to play on the beach (though I am now deathly afraid of body surfing). If I sue, I am transferring my personal responsibility to someone else, and they are less likely to set up opportunities for me to do these things, or if they do, they will need to be insured up the ying-yang and will price most people out of taking part in the activity.

However, there was no way that my friend could stop the leech who bought her liability from her HMO from suing the mountain bike park whose only crime was to set up a place where people could recreate outdoors in the middle of a mid-western urban centre. In fact, the HMO made it very clear that she could be compelled to testify in a civil suit against her will.

I suspect the majority of people have the same sense of personal decency to not sue people who provide you recreation. Break a leg doing a 720 at the local ski hill, would you sue? Slip and fall at the local swimming pool, would you sue? What if it was your neighbour’s pool? Slip on your grandmother’s step while shovelling it for her: Would you sue? You may not have a choice, as your Government will sue for you. Everyone who belongs to a curling club, who coaches a softball team, who has a grandmother who needs her walk shoveled, should be worried about this law. Yet I am betting you have never heard of it.

I expect that kind of shitty behaviour in the Tort-friendly Excited States of America, and I expect it from crappy HMO companies that must always acquiesce to the shareholders’ interests (what is suing a bike park compared to cutting cancer patients off of their meds?). I also expect from the con men who spill water on the floor at Safeway then “slip” and sue for whiplash.  I expect better from my elected government. I expect more for my tax dollars. This is not the kind of US-style health care I want to see.

Thank You TransLink, Thank You Sapperton

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

20 hours later, I’m still unsure how to view the announcement that the UBE and the NFPR through New Westminster are dead.

My first reaction was to thank the volunteers who spent countless hours working through the consultation process. This is the note I sent the UBE Google Group last night:

“Congratulations, everyone. It is refreshing to see a community come together, and to see those elected and/or hired to represent us listen to the community.

But let’s not forget, the end of the NFPR is only the beginning of the conversation. We still have traffic issues to deal with, we still have Braid and Brunette, we still have Front Street cutting us off from our waterfront, we still have an under-serviced industrial area. The City is just now starting on a Master Transportation Plan process that will set the City’s priorities for the next decade and on. I encourage everyone who got involved in the UBE consultations to stay involved in the MTP process.

And finally, let’s acknowledge TransLink for taking an honest approach to community consultation. They spent a lot of money and staff time to make this thing work, and in the end when they could not get the support of the community, they were honest about it, and chose not to challenge the will of the people. They deserve kudos for both taking the time to make the case, and for taking the time to listen to ours.”

So this post is about that last point (there will be lots of opportunity to discuss the earlier points later).

I want to thank TransLink for engaging in this process, and for actually listening to the community instead of dictating to the community. There were a lot of people who were quick to say this consultation was all a sham. An Anonymous commenter on this Blog as recently as yesterday suggested as much. The indefatigable troll “Rick” on Tenth to the Fraser has been counted amongst those suggesting the UBE was a done deal, and frankly, a lot of people at the consultations felt the same way during the process. I was not one of them.

I have been a pretty harsh critic of TransLink recently (including a letter in this week’s News Leader following up on their recent budget announcement), but they did the right thing here, and deserve kudos. I made the point last night to personally thank Vincent Gonsalves and Sany Zein for taking the time to listen to the community and for honestly recognizing that their vision and our community’s vision were not compatable.

I heard Ken Hardie on CBC radio this morning. His message was at times slightly off-putting. It will be heard by many as one small neighborhood (Sapperton), blocking “traffic progress” for the whole region. In reality, it was the entire of New Westminster that took part in the consultation, and the reasons the community was against it were not as simple as Mr. Hardie framed them. It wasn’t only about impacts on Sapperton, it was about taking a holistic approach to the traffic issues in New Westminster, it was about prioritizing highway expansion over more sustainable alternatives, it was about trying to do what no other jurisdiction has ever done: solve traffic congestion by building roads. Those are the messages that resonated in New Westminster, and those are the reasons the community did not get on board. It was the impacts on the neighborhood that brought the people out, but it was the lack of viable solutions that killed the project.

Unfortunately, Rick Cluff (who continues to view the world through a windshield) tried to paint this as a big defeat and failure for TransLink, and I do not think that is fair. I see this as vindication of TransLink’s approach to public consultation, and it goes a long way towards building trust in TransLink as an organization that is genuinely interested in the needs of Metro Vancouver.

More importantly, this is not a NIMBY issue. New Westminster wants TransLink to build Evergreen so that our under-serviced neighbouring communities can enjoy the Transit access that New Westminster already enjoys.New Westminster wants TranLink to build rail alternatives for the South-of-Fraser and the Valley, so that the need for more roads is reduced. New Westminster wants Translink and the Federal Government to spend our tax dollars on practical, useful infrastructure that will move goods and people, and support more sustainable community development. If that infrastructure spending is not in New West, that is fine with us, becasue the entire region benefits, and we are good neighbours.

There is temptation to say “WE WON!” and by extension to suggest TransLink lost. However, that is superficial. The victory here is for the process, and TransLink owns that victory as much as New Westminster does. The only people who lost were the people sitting on the sidelines, not taking part in the engagement process, and who will now, no doubt, start complaining about the decision that was made (see the comments on the CBC news item to see the Monday-morning quarterbacking already). The fact Coquitlam was essentially absent from all these discussions (they had 24 people show up at their UBE open house event, and most were from New Westminster) will hurt them if they try to claim injustice now.

Election Results

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

The real election results:

The Majority Mandate enjoyed by our new Government

??

Locally, I am happy Fin won, as he is a great representative, for reasons I pointed out earlier. I also would like to thank Diana Dilworth, Ken Beck Lee, and Rebecca Helps for running positive campaigns. I think Diana especially proved herself capable and worthy as a Candidate, and deserves the reward of more votes vs. the previous by-election when she was famous mostly for not being accessible. This campaign, she was aware of the issues, meeting the public personally and at events, and was very personable when I met her. It was only the Shadow of Darth Harper holding her back in my estimation.

Her campaign also contrasted with Paul Forseth, who relied heavily on the politics of fear: this ad in the local paper is an example of the shitty politics that no-one should be rewarded for:

Classless, baseless, and insulting to the reader. I met Paul this election, and had a chance to chat with him, we agreed to disagree on some issues, but he kept bringing up the “Free Enterprise vs. Socialists” false dichotomy, as if there is no grey area between completely free unfettered markets and regulated social systems… so 19th Century as to be quaint. So although I was not able to vote for Peter Julian, I was happy to see him win.

Federally, it is obvious we are entering a new phase in Canada’s history. Part of me is hoping that Harper will follow the lead of Joe Clarke and Brian Mulroney: campaign right and govern middle. Maybe that is his “hidden agenda”. Otherwise, there will be interesting days ahead, with Jack driven apoplectic in the house, and a new era of very divisive politics in Canada.

One thing seems clear: the shift of Canada from one of the most highly respected nations on earth to a global pariah will continue. This is not “hidden agenda” stuff: this is what the Harper Conservatives wear on their sleeve. We will become more militaristic in lieu of seeking diplomacy. Our days as honest broker in the middle are gone. We will continue to be one of the planet’s worst polluters. We will continue to value security at the cost of liberty, and through this, we will become less secure by making ourselves more of a target for terrorism. Sewing a maple leaf on your backpack may no longer be a “get out of trouble free card” for people like me who enjoy travelling to countries without all-inclusive resorts.

Where the shift of support from the Liberals to the NDP will take us is uncertain. Some are saying the NDP surge in Quebec may create the legend of Jack Layton as the saviour of Canada, but let’s not start counting chickens. If Harper comes out of the gate too aggressivly with social conservatism, we will see a surge in PQ support in the upcoming Provincial Election, with little federal interest to prevent it (make no mistake, these are Manning Conservatives in this majority – a majority with no mandate in Quebec is a Reform Party of Canada dream).. and we may see a referendum in this parliament.

I think that the loss of Gerard Kennedy is a much bigger blow to the Liberals than the loss of Ignatieff. Without Kennedy, the Grits will need to re-grow around someone else. Most are looking at a youth wing surrounding Justin Trudeau. The number of old big-C conservatives who hated P.E.Trudeau for being so urbane is dwindling with demographics, and as the legend replaces actual memory, Justin will be there to scoop it up. I think any centre + left coalition talk will depend on how the NDP are polling in 2014. They have no reason to entertain the Liberals until they need votes. Or unless they need the Trudeau name to replace and ailing Jack. I hope Jack realizes that Bob Rae is the reason he didn’t win seats in Ontario, and the reason we have a Harper Majority.

Nina Grewal is an excellent example of why representative democracy sometimes just doesn’t work.

I was skeptical of Elizabeth May’s all-for-one strategy, but knowing several people on the islands, it seems obvious now. The end of per-vote subsidies may be a problem for her, but with it seemingly inevitable now, the strategy of getting a seat instead of crossing the country to grub out every possible $5 vote probably makes sense. From what I experienced this year as a former member, The Green fundraising machine is has been substantially developed since the deficit situation they got into last election. If Harper brings back big-money corporate political donations (and why wouldn’t he?), then all the other parties are in trouble money-wise. (that said, election rules really don’t matter to the Tories, as they are happy to break them with complete immunity, so I guess that doesn’t matter).

The Greens best strategy going forward is to keep her in the news, and expand the all-for-one campaign next election to an all-for-5, by identifying 3 or 4 more ridings and putting superstar candidates in them. I think of some of those Quebec ridings where the BQ support so collapsed that absentee NDP kids were elected: the Greens should be able to hone in and pick up those protest votes when the college bartenders prove to be incapable of administering a constituency office.

So election night I was at the NWEP / Tenth to the Fraser poll party, and ran an informal poll pool. The results were interesting, proving the lottery nature of this election.

In the end, the NWEP’s answer to Nostradamus, Andrew Murray, came closest to predicting the unpredictable, and won the pool. Although he predicted a minority government, his guess of 138 Conservative seats, 110 NDP, 38 Liberal, 21 Bloc, and 1 Green/Independent was closer to the final results that anyone else, with an aggregate total seat difference of 58, well ahead of the 2nd place finisher, who had a 78 seat difference. Clearly, the difference was Andrew’s prescient evaluation of the Liberal collapse and the NDP rise.

At first look, it appears the Vote Party participants (there were only 15 who filled out ballots before the 7:00 deadline) were woefully unable to predict the results, and even in what seemed to be a typical New West NDP-friendly crowd (the announcement of the Conservative majority really took the buzz off the party), the group underestimated the the NDP rise (average guess 88 seats) and Liberal collapse (average guess: 67 seats). Although one person correctly predicted only 4 seats for the Bloc, the average guess was 26 seats. The most common miss was a significant underestimate of the Conservative wins (average guess 123 seats), as no-one predicted a majority.

To be fair to the participants, most were given about 5 minutes to fill out a “ballot” with very little guidance. The professionals and pundits also significantly missed the mark here. Just for fun, I showed the EKOS and Nanos polling firm predictions from the day before the election, and the predictions of two “interactive” polling ideas: the 308 Project and the Canadian Prediction Project. With aggregate differences between 92 and 116, none of them would have won our contest, and they had 4 weeks to perfect their picks. As I said going in, this election was like a lottery. Next time, the pollsters should save us all time and money, and just call Andrew.

So much for the Secret Ballot

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

I’m throwing my lot in with Tenth to the Fraser here, and am supporting Fin Donnelly this election.

To many people who know me only from this Blog, that is probably not a surprise. I come across as a soft leftie big-government tax-and-spend environmental whack job (or so I am told). However, it is a surprise to most people who know me, including myself.

I have never voted NDP in my life, and I have voted in every federal election since 1988 (When I voted for the PCs, who with the benefit of hindsight, were the most progressive Government on the environment in my lifetime). With elections in 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2008, along with one Federal by-election (that I can recall voting in) and 4 Provincial Elections (I didn’t vote in 2001 as I was living in the States), that is 11 chances, and I have never taken the Orange pill.
Part of the reason for this is that I was raised in a Big C Conservative household. My Dad, especially, was never too comfortable with the “Progressive” tag in the PC name, and proudly lined up to vote for Robert Stanfield against Trudeau three times. The ironic part of this is that every time I suggest perhaps Stephen Harper is not the best thing ever to happen to Canada, my Father’s reflex false dichotomy argument is to accuse me of “loving Jack”. So telling my Dad, in his 70th year, that I voted for Jack is going to hurt. This picture will no doubt disappoint:
Sorry Dad. I guess the Canucks playoff beard doesn’t help, eh? 
Another reason is that the last Party of which I was a member was the Green Party of Canada. I joined after meeting Marshall Smith, who ran for New Westminster-Coquitlam, and have helped Rebecca Helps in the subsequent by-election. My membership is now lapsed (which hasn’t stopped the relentless flow of spam), although I still think the Greens may have the best platform on balance. There is a lot more there that I agree with than things I don’t (although there is still much of the latter). This election, however, the Greens have decided to put all of their effort into one and a half ridings, and have essentially abandoned the idea of being a national party. I also have concerns that the “Green” brand has taken that party as far as it is going to go, and they have to do some serious soul-searching about how they plan to break past the 7% ceiling they have hit. Locally, Rebecca was a great candidate during the by-election, and has her heart in the right place, but has herself moved on to Victoria to work for the Provincial Greens, and has had a pretty lacklustre campaign locally.
That said, the biggest challenge the New Westminster-Coquitlam Greens have is Fin Donnelly. The NDP have a hit-and-miss record on the environment, partly (in my uninformed opinion) because of their traditional labour support (so Union Jobs will always come before environmental stewardship), and partly because their response to Climate Change (the “Cap and Trade” method) is simply wrong. Nonetheless, Fin rises above the balance of the party on the Environment file. His unrelenting advocacy for the protection of the Fraser River and wild Pacific Salmon is approaching legend status. He is as “green” as any NDP candidate gets.
In his short 16-months as MP, he has demonstrated an exceptional work ethic. For a new MP in a third-place party, his record is substantial: he has brought 6 private members bills forward, two on environmental issues, and has worked across parties to advance these initiatives. He has held town hall meetings here at home to connect his constituents to Ottawa. He is the only local senior-government politician who is impolite enough to mention that Evergreen has not really been built yet.
I can personally vouch for his constituent support. A couple of friends and I were working on a difficult local environment issue, and were able to arrange a meeting with Fin to discuss the issue. He took the time to listen to our concerns, gave us some insight into the politics of the issue, and provided some really useful suggestions. He also took the time to provide useful insight into the UBE issue that has a Federal component (as that is where some of the money comes from). He has worked in Ottawa, and he has worked in the community. That is what I want from an MP.

So today I decided to attend the Jack Layton rally in Burnaby. Notably, I am not and NDP member, nor have I ever supported the NDP, but I had not problem joining the crowd at this rally (hear that Stephen?). And it was as pumped up a crowd as I have seen since I saw the Tragically Hip play at the House of Blues in Vegas. Following the tried-and-true campaign tactic of ordering a room about 10% too small for the crowd you anticipate, the NDP missed the goal here, as there were more people outside rallying than there were inside. It was so packed inside that even Adrian Dix couldn’t get a front-row seat. Jack was on message, and full of energy, and made sure to point out, in English and in French, that the Quebec breakthrough makes this an election like no other.

Jack was so full of energy, I would have needed a faster camaera to catch him…
The Rally was so crowded, even those who should have had some pull
seemed to have a hard time getting close to the stage.
So I guess I am on the Orange Wave. The polls, if they are to be trusted, are suggesting that the NDP may beat the Liberals. I’m not sure the popular vote surge is going to result in enough seats to make Jack Prime Minister in our first-past-the-post system, but predictions are not worth much this year. Monday Night’s Vote Party will be fun, and it will be a nail biter.

What a dick.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

I try to stay non-partisan. I have voted for many different parties in the past, and now that I have zeroed in on “the environment” as the main issue I vote around, I am pretty confident that any party can take a leadership role on that topic (although none of them choose to talk about it this election). Generally, I vote for the best local candidate, and that is how I am going to vote this year. I feel pretty good about my vote this year, having had the chance to chat with all 4 of my local “main party” candidates last week. So this vote is a character vote, not a party vote.

That said, I have nothing against my local Conservative candidate. She works hard in her community and has some “envrionmental cred”, but I am going to be voting against her party for one simple reason: Stephen Harper is a dick.

I try to run a family program here, but the word “dick” just describes Harper so perfectly, I can’t think of a less profane way to encapsulate his personality. His history is defined by a long serious of serious dick moves, and he pretty much owns 100% of the dick moves this election campaign.

His latest dick move was standing up yesterday and talking up his unqualified support for profiteering from third world deaths.

Background: The sale of asbestos is illegal in Canada, as it is in most of Europe, Japan, and the rest of the industrialized world. In the US it is not strictly illegal due to strong industry throttling of the EPA, but it is effectively impossible to use, as the costs related to safety and clean-up have priced asbestos out of the market compared to safer alternatives. This is because asbestos causes cancer and other deadly diseases. Of course, in developing countries, they don’t have the governance levels required to institute strict controls on asbestos use. Therefore, in much of the world, Canadian asbestos is used in the same way now as it was in North America 50 years ago, with the same resultant cancer deaths.

Selling a known cancer-causing agent to countries that cannot effectively regulate their use is not illegal, it is just deeply, deeply unethical. Especially as Canada itself will not allow its use because of the unacceptable human health impact. Yet Canada is in the exclusive company of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe and Columbia as the last countries that mine and sell asbestos.

Why? Well, he is interested in protecting jobs! However, the few remaining asbestos mines in Canada are all in Quebec, and employ less than 1000 people. To put that in perspective, that is about 5% of the total mining employment in Quebec, and way less than 1% of the mining employment in Canada. Ten times as many people work for the City of Vancouver than work in all the asbestos mines in Canada combined. These few mines operate only due to government subsidies, and create markets in the poorer parts of the world through a government-funded marketing and PR firm. Standing up for this losing industry that kills more people annually than it employs is a big-time dick move.

Another campaign example of a dick move is to continue to assert that his pet jet planes are going to cost $75 million each. This despite the guys selling the planes saying that is not true; industry experts from Washington saying it is not true; his own Department of Defence saying it is not true; his own Parlimentary Budget Office saying it is not true. What do any of these guys know? Steve is sticking to his story. What a dick.

There was even a loca ldick move last week. Apparently, The right honrourable dick was going to meet the press and give a few words here in New Westminster. The press and supporters were told to expect him some time around noon on Easter Sunday, at Royal Square. A few people I know well showed up, hoping to spy the PM. However, only invited guests and press were loaded on to a bus, with a driver who apparently didn’t know (or couldn’t say) where he was going. At noon, they drove over to the Burnaby Alliance Church, and arrived just in time to see (and film, for the afternoon broadcast) the dick walk out of a church and into his motorcade. No press conference, no interaction with the public. Compare this to Ignatieff’s visit to West Vancouver last week, a public stop at a small business, an open-to-the-public town hall, addressing questions from people off the street. Or compare it to the time last year that Jack came into the Brooklyn on Columbia and shook every hand in the room, with Fin Donnelly the only “security” around. These are not dick moves.

Firing his “Integrity Commissioner” and paying her to shut her up? Firing the Nuclear Safety Regulator for not agreeing to approve the unsafe operation of a nuclear reactor? Giving a speech to his American pals describing Canada as a “Northern European Welfare State in the worst sense of the term”? All dick moves.

How about throwing Helena Guergis under the bus? Keeping mum for more than a year about shadowy “allegations” that made her too hot to keep around caucus, and eventually lead to her being turfed. Then when she is running in a tight election race as a Independent, Harper releases a bunch of salacious allegations, painting her as a drug addicted whore, then saying in effect “well, we have no proof, but boy, look at them allegations!”. This is eerily similar to the “ancient and honourable story” Hunter S. Thompson told about how Lyndon Johnson first got elected to Congress in 1948:

“…Lyndon was running about 10 points behind, with only nine days to go… He was sunk in despair. He was desperate. And it was just before noon on a Monday, they say, when he called his equally depressed campaign manager and instructed him to call a press conference at two or two-thirty (just after lunch on a slow news day) and accuse his high-riding opponent (the [wealthy and politically favoured] pig farmer) of having routine carnal knowledge of his barnyard sows, despite the pleas of his wife and children… His campaign manager was shocked. ‘We can’t say that, Lyndon,’ he said. ‘It’s not true.’ ‘Of course it’s not,’ Johnson barked at him, ‘but let’s make the bastard deny it.’

That is the type and scale of dick Stephen Harper is.

Pier Park ad nauseum.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

Chris Bell’s ongoing criticism of the Pier Park has suffered a bit of a backlash in the local media, which has in turn resulted in Mr. Bell striking back with allegations of a personal vendetta. The drama…

Mr. Bell’s analysis of ad hominem was interesting, if slightly flawed. However, he may have a point. Little in Mrs. Jepser’s letter addressed the specific claims made by Mr. Bell. These are claims I am painfully familiar with, and have addressed specifically in the past. Mr. Bell has even offered to retort to my criticism of his specific claims, but so far, he has failed to do so.

So I will avoid ad hominem, and address Mr. Bell’s specific claims, as he presented them in his recent letter, and since he raised the spectre of Logical Fallacy, I will return the favour:

“I have claimed that the railroad lands north of the Westminster Pier Park are themselves a brownfield site…”

This is a factual error. For a piece of land to be a “brownfield”, it must be abandoned, or have lost its useful value due to actual or perceived contamination. The rail lines are far from abandoned, but are being used to move trains. They are an active contaminated site. To the best of my knowledge, there are no plans for them to be abandoned any time in the near future. (Logical Fallacy: incorrect use of terminology)

“…heavily contaminated…”

This phrase is kind of subjective, and judgmental in this setting. There is inferred contamination in the groundwater (and potentially the soil) under the tracks, but by what measure is contamination “heavy”? (Logical Fallacy: use of Weasel Words)

“…with hazardous levels of tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene and cichloroethylene,”(sic)

This assertion is not supported by the facts. There is some concentration of these three solvents (common in drycleaning solutions and things like brake cleaners or carburettor treatments you can buy at Canadian Tire) in the groundwater at the park. No-where in the reports is it suggested that these solvents are present in concentrations regulated under the Hazardous Waste Regulations. Therefore the use of “hazardous” in the strict sense of the Environmental Management Act is wrong, and (as we will see next) incorrect in the informal sense (Logical Fallacy: incorrect use of terminology).

“…and therefore must be avoided”.

This is a complete non-sequitor. I have explained this to Mr. Bell several times, but he continuously fails to acknowledge the fact. The identified contamination under the rails area is in groundwater 40 feet below the surface. It does not now, nor will conceivably ever, pose a health risk to people standing on the tracks. No matter how hard or how often he bangs this drum, it ain’t the truth (Logical Fallacy: Non-Sequitor).

“I have questioned why the City of New Westminster, having known about the toxic railway right-of-way (which it owns) for many months, has not posted signs alerting citizens to the toxic soils.”

And I suspect the answer he received was: there is no risk to people using the tracks from the soils, and the railway already has signs saying “Private Property: keep off”. Not because of the risk from soils, but because of the risk caused by onrushing trains!

“This claim is not in dispute…”

Yes it is, and I have disputed it with Mr. Bell repeatedly. (Logical Fallacy: this is a form of Begging the Question)

“as the City of New Westminster sent a report to the Ministry of Environment eight months ago outlining how the railway land soils are high risk for contamination.”

And, as has been explained to Mr. Bell several times, the “High Risk” designation under the Contaminated Sites Regulations has no relation whatsoever to actual hazard caused to people walking on the tracks or using the park (Logical Fallacy: incorrect use of terminology).

“ That same report outlines how the railway lands are more contaminated than the park soils were”

There is an interesting use of the phrase “more contaminated”. The Park soils had metals contamination in the surface soils (now removed), and small patches of near-surface light hydrocarbon contamination (now removed or treated), and low concentrations of the chlorinated solvents in groundwater at one location at great depth. The concentrations of the solvents at depth are likely higher under the tracks, but there is no indication the metals of light hydrocarbon contamination is present on the tracks.

“(that’s saying something considering how toxic the soils of the park were)”

No it isn’t. It isn’t saying anything, since the bulk of contamination in the Park lands was addressed and was in no way related to the contamination under the tracks. (Logical Fallacy: the Association Fallacy).

Another interesting Logical Fallacy has come up recently in the media discussion about the Pier Park. First the main argument was that there was something underhanded about how the park was purchased (secret deals, etc.), and those were well refuted. This was followed by the suggestion that there was a lack of environmental due diligence in the purchase (also refuted). Then the argument was that the contamination on the site was going to be a danger to park users (yes, refuted), which shifted slightly to an argument that the tracks adjacent to the Park were dangerous to trespassers (now, hopefully, completely refuted). Now the argument is arouynd a preceived inadequacy in the number of piles being used to stabilise the pier, as if the structural engineers, geotechnical engineers, and the City are conspiring together the endanger park users…

This technique is known as the “Gish Gallop”.

Meeting Candidates

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Notice, this is one of those few posts I will do where I am essentially writing as President of the New Westminster Environmental Partners. I have not passed this by the membership, so the opinions expressed below are not necessarily those of the NWEP, but the event I am talking about is clearly an NWEP-led initiative. So: Facts theirs, opinions mine. Capice?

Last week, the New Westminster Environmental Partners did what they do best: partnered with other groups to bring people together and get them talking about solutions to problems. The only thing different this week was the people who got together: Members of Parliament and people seeking to become members of Parliament.

Partnering with NEXT New West (a group so secretive, they have meetings in public places every month, and commonly post video of them on YouTube), and Tenth to the Fraser (you know who they are…), we held a unique all-candidates event.

Now, the NWEP do not, as a general rule, shout and protest. More commonly, we try to educate ourselves about sustainability topics, seek to inform the public about issues, and engage the decision makers to try to find common interest towards positive outcomes. Most of the time, we find conversation much more productive if neither side is shouting. There may be a time and an issue that calls for protest, but in a community like New Westminster you can usually bend the ear of the people you need to reach without the need to yell.

With this in mind, we wanted to hold an event for the Federal Election, as we have organized traditional debate-style “all candidates meetings” in previous elections. But just another debate-style meeting, where candidates read the party script to an audience of already-decided people, with microphones and media all waiting for the gotcha-moment, that doesn’t seem like engaging conversation anymore. Maybe all we need to do is bring the local candidates into a room and let them have normal conversations with each other and their constituents.

It just so happens NWEP had a format in our back pocket: Green Drinks. Once a month for the last few years, NWEP types and others interested in environment and sustainability issues have gathered on the first Wednesday of the month to socialize and network for a few hours. No themes, no speeches, just a chance to get together and share ideas. We didn’t invent the idea: Green Drinks have happened for years around the world.

Of course “Green Drinks” is a pretty loaded idea, and although the environmental focus is an attractive idea to some parties, it may not appeal to a few others (remaining non-partisan, I’ll let you fill those categories yourself). So we asked NEXT – a group comprised of young business leaders and entrepreneurs in New Westminster, if they wanted to meet the candidates and they agreed it was a good idea. We hoped this would broaden the appeal somewhat. The good folks at Tenth to the Fraser also piped in to offer logistical and advertising support, and we now had everything…except a date or a location.

The original Green Drinks time and place did not work out for a variety of reasons, mostly conflicting schedules, and not enough lead time to get any Candidates. Long story short, Robert Tang from LaRustica stepped up and offered to host us in the Roma Room. We had little certainty to offer him: we didn’t know how many people would show up, nor did we know how much people would buy… so it must have been a challenge for him to organize staffing… but he was accommodating and in the end it worked out.

Of course, timing was also important: we had to compete with the all-candidates meetings being scheduled in other locations in both ridings (notably, none in New Westminster), with the Easter Long Weekend, with the short election cycle, and with Canucks Playoff games. Once a likely date was found, we sent invitations to all 8 candidates in the “main” parties for the two New West ridings, and were frankly shocked when 7 of the 8 agreed to show up.

To keep this from being just another debate, we decided to give each candidate a few minutes on a soap box to introduce themselves. Briana from Tenth to the Fraser took video of each speech (and mercifully avoided showing my ham-fisted announcements), so you can see they were short and the crowd was (for the most part) receptive. But outside of the 15 minutes or so of “soap box time” the rest of the evening was lively, with lots of conversation. The crowd was smaller than I expected, but we mostly filled the room, and there was unprecedented access to the candidates for those who did show up.

It was great to see such a mixed crowd: along with the usual NWEP rabble rousers, there was a popular former coffee-shop owner, to a local trucker well known for being politically outspoken, several young local proprietors, a young local realtor, a City councillor, and a well-known Quayside president, along with several people I met for the first time. Since there was little time wasted on speeches, I got to bend Diana Dilworth’s ear about the Fraser Basin Council, talk to Ken Beck Lee about his work on scrutinizing international GHG auditors, and chat with Paul Forseth about a common friend (a former Reform MP from my home town) and the adventure of flying into Castlegar airport. It was great to be able to chat with these “candidates” as people. Of course, I also discussed my vision of environmental responsibility with a couple of candidates, asked some questions about their vision, and made sure they knew what topics I thought were important this election.

I think it was a good event. The candidates seemed happy, and the crowd there had great access to the candidates. I think this is a model the NWEP will return to in future elections, now that we know it actually works. If nothing else, I now know who I am going to vote for, and feel good about the person I am giving my vote to.

In contrast, I attended the “traditional” all-candidates meeting put on the Burquitlam Community Association at Banting Middle School the following evening. This was very well attended, there were several hundred people, and there were 5 candidates there from the New Westminster-Coquitlam riding. And quite honestly, it was painful. In an echo-laden gym, the candidates sat behind a table with their policy books in front of them, and answered vapid or loaded questions as close to the party line as possible, with the same group of family and supporters cheering or jeering on cue. 

There were a few interesting moments (some NDP supporter asked Diana Dilworth about abortion, Fin Donnelly asked who we were going to attack with our F-35 Attack planes), but for the most part, the responses were dull, and varied little from the rhetoric of campaign-speak. When a question about voter apathy came up about an hour in, we had to leave for fear of narcolepsy.

With all required modesty, I think the NWEP/NEXT/TttF did it better.

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.