Clean Air Now

please feel free to share posts on this page - the coverage would help...J

A pellet plant is currently being proposed for Hazelton. This may not create air quality problems. The insurance people have had in that past was that the Ministry of Environment issued permits that allowed them to determine if pollution was being emitted by an operator and to take enforcement action if pollution occurred. Permits now being issued to operators who are discharging emissions don't include real-time measurement of emissions.

We've been told that a meeting between Pinnacle and some of our members has shown some promise - i.e. that the company's management has an interest in minimizing it's emissions. We are appreciative and will keep our fingers crossed. This is relationship volunteered by the company. There is no recourse for people if the efforts of the company don't result in clean emissions. The Ministry of Environment is virtually absent. As I have mentioned before, they have abdicated their obligation to minimize pollution.

Below are 2 photos of the Pinnacle Pellet Plant and a letter to the Ministry of Environment contact for air quality: Hello Ben; Here are two more photos showing heavy smoke being emitted from Pinnacle. One is from July 20 and one from July 24. They join a large number of similar photos that I and others have sent around.... It is obvious from these photos that Pinnacle is polluting the airshed. This contradicts the promises they made when they applied for their Waste Management Permits. Due to MoE's and Pinnacle's refusal to install in-stack monitoring, no one knows what actually goes through the stack. Ambient air measurements seem to indicate that pollution levels dropped 20% when Newpro shut down. According to ongoing and well documented ambient air measurements, airborne pollution levels have risen 22% since Pinnacle came on stream. As no other major emissions sources were added at the time, it is a reasonable argument that Pinnacle is responsible for the increase in airborne pollution. It is a known fact that this pollution sickens and kills people. The elected officials and public servants among you have undertaken to protect the public interest. While you have rejected all calls to ask for more stringent regulations for the polluter, you may still feel bound by the commitments you made. This is to ask you to outline clearly what each of you intends to do to reduce the pollution in the airshed according to your mandate. Permit me to say that it is not good enough to speak to the polluter, or somehow work with them to address the issue. This has been done for a significant length of time with no result. I am now asking you to tell me and others how you are planning to reduce this harmful pollution. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Christoph DIetsfelbinger (Clean Air Now)

Clean Air Now as well as Clean Air First are both still active FB pages at this point. We may blend the two. Meanwhile, we encourage dialogue/posts (including photos) related to concerns about air quality in the Bulkley Valley and how it might be improved.

The Assistant Deputy Minister of the Environment recently sent a letter to the Smithers Town Council recognizing that the air quality of Smithers is not meeting standards for good health. He failed to recognize that those data are representative of the Bulkley Valley and obliquely implied that the problem is Smithers' (it just happens that the air monitor is located in Smithers). It's time for the Ministry of Environment to re-assume its' responsibility to prevent pollution. FYI, the Ministry of Environment has virtually abdicated from enforcement of the Waste Management Act and it's related permits.

This from CAN member Christoph Dietsfelbinger. Many of us believe that the Government cost-cutting policy of allowing polluters to regulate themselves is not working. It's time for a change. Hello Smithers people, here is a link to a pertinent article on air pollution. https://www.cbc.ca//air-pollution-kills-more-people-than-s... Here is a quote: "Something that emerges from your book is that governments need to regulate this that the private sector and industry and business aren't going to clean up of their own accord. That was really something that I saw as a theme throughout the book. We've seen that when it comes to pollution, companies are very happy to outsource the costs just spew their pollution into the air or the water or whatever, and let the costs be borne by the public in terms of effects on our health. And it is only government power in the form of regulation that has changed that." Pinnacle came into this community claiming that they were polluting much less that Newpro was. This is not what happened, and I call on Pinnacle to stop their operation until they can run their process without poisoning the air. Regards Christoph Dietzfelbinger

Pinnacle - May 14.

this has been going on for 3 days now....

These photos were taken at 7:30 am April 28. These emissions are mostly 'moisture plumes' - the steam in the emissions hits a dew point as it cools and drops out as water droplets, leaving a clearer plume at one point, travelling away from the stack. The photos also show a lot of smoke build-up in the valley - this is why we should be concerned about reducing the sources.

As Frank Wray correctly pointed out, one of the photos we posted doesn't show direct emissions from Pinnacle. He infers however that the haze came from wood stoves. This is egregious (to use his word) - the fact is, we don't know where the smoke came from. - it could just has easily been from Pinnacle as wood stoves.

If the air gets smokey in the Valley - take some photos of Pinnacle and post them here with the time and date. The hill by Harris Auto is a good view.

The following letter was printed in the Smithers Interior News Mar. 19, 2019. Editor, The valley is experiencing another one of its unfortunate air quality advisories as of last week, with the inhalable particulate levels reaching twice the maximum acceptable limit. This is a toxic situation for those of us who breathe.... Traditionally during air quality advisories, people who emit smoke are asked by the Ministry of Environment to take extra care to minimize their emissions. I would like to believe that the Ministry of Environment is still spending some of their work hours ensuring that this occurs, and enforcing emission permit conditions. I drove past the Pinnacle Pellet plant every day last week and it has been smoking badly, right through the poor air quality advisory. Could this be the result of a different or blended feedstock of green aspen that was hauled to the plant or short-cutting of the drying process? The citizens of the Bulkley Valley deserve better, both in terms of emissions enforcement and rectifying broken promises. Jim Senka Clean Air Now (Residents of the Bulkley Valley concerned about air quality)

Pinnacle swore up and down that they weren't going to smoke up the valley. Clean Air tried to warn them but the Provincial Government and Town of Smithers believed the company,

The following is an open letter to the BC Government about the proposed amendments to the Open Burning Smoke Control Regulation: Dear Mr. Kellerhaus: My name is... Jay Gilden and I am from Smithers. Yesterday, I attended the webinar that your office held about the proposed changes to the OBSCR rules. I am part of a group here called Clean Air Now. As the Town of Smithers and others here have expressed to your office on a number of occasions, area residents are concerned about the apparent weakening of the rules that is contained in the various recent proposed OBSCR changes as they apply to so-called low sensitivity zones. Under those changes, these zones start, as a rule of thumb, approximately 20 kms. from towns such as Smithers. Yet, our air is affected by slash burns taking place as far away as 100 kms. or more. In fact, very little industrial slash burning is occurring within 20 kms. (let alone within the 10 kms. radius that is set out in the proposed changes for the high sensitivity zones) because logging within that radius is rare. Notwithstanding this distance between the town and the burns, each autumn, we experience serious smoke pollution events due to industrial slash burning. You stated during the webinar that the actual locations of the zone areas will depend on air sheds and that maps identifying the locations of the zones will be released at some point in the future. It seems to me that we cannot possibly determine whether the proposed changes will do further harm to our air pollution problems until we see the maps. In the unlikely event that the high sensitivity zone around Smithers is set broadly enough to control most of the slash burning affecting our air quality, the proposed changes will at least make matters slightly better by reducing the burn duration limit. If not, the proposal will lead to no improvement and perhaps a worsening of an already bad situation. We can tell you with certainty that a 20 km. radius limit for our high and medium sensitivity zones will result in serious adverse consequences. I did ask during the seminar, as did another participant, when the maps will be available, but you did not have an answer. Since you state that comments on the proposed changes should be submitted within 6 weeks, we hope that the maps will be released as soon as possible. Otherwise, we will be without sufficient information to be able to evaluate the likely impact of the rule changes. Jay Gilden

Proposed revisions to the Open Burning Smoke Control Regulation can be seen at . https://www2.gov.bc.ca//open-burni/openburningsmokereg.pdf Note that the changes significantly weaken the ability to reduce smoke caused by slash burning. If you have concerns, send an email to [email protected]

A few Clean Air Now members just attended the first of 4 Webnars explaining the proposed revisions to the OBSCR (Open Burning Smoke Control Regulation). It's not good. While the original intention of the OBSCR was to allow burning as a last resort, the proposed new version will allow the Director to permit burning whenever she/he wants. It appears to us that the Government is in the pocket of industry. Sound familiar? We had a chat with the local Ministry Air Quality Meteorologist and all we heard was reasons why the Ministry of Environment can't do anything. No one wants to stand up. Most people cared about the environment. when I worked there, but now they just care about their jobs.

The Town of Smithers has issued a temporary ban on domestic wood stove use (for those with a secondary source of heat). This an excellent opportunity for our By-Law Enforcement Officer to do his job. If he would issue one or 2 warnings to a couple abusers and publicize it, that would put the message out there that people can't operate dirty stoves. A simple solution.

This from Jay - feel free to share..... Hi Everyone: As you may have noticed, on Friday, October 13th, the air quality in the Valley was very poor. I happened to be driving on Hungry Hill on Friday and I could see that the majority of the smoke was coming from Houston and slash piles burning on the ridge to the west and directly across the Bulkley from Hungry Hill. That smoke plume continued all the way to Smithers. My guess is that, although the air quality was obviously... bad for the entire day, there was no air quality alert issued. So much for Gary Quanstrom’s reliance on air quality alerts as a method for determining if slash burning affects our air. The air was so hazy that day with a very low cloud cover that it was not worthwhile taking photos of the plume since the smoke would not have appeared in the pictures in any event. On Saturday, I happened to take a hike that included a stop on the Bald Spot on the NE Slope Trails on Hudson Bay Mountain. That day, the air quality started poor, but improved as the winds switched. I did take a series of photos from the Bald Spot looking both southeast (photos 1 and 2)and northeast ( photo 3 -the view towards the town). In those pictures, you can clearly see the smoke retreating to the south with the view to the southeast obscured by smoky haze, but the view to the northeast (overlooking the Town) quite clear. This sequence illustrates the inadequacy of the air quality alert system to inform residents of unhealthy air, as well as the degree to which the slash smoke can travel over long distances and impact our health. As to Gary H’s burns, I would be greatly surprised if the venting was good on Friday (apparently, the second day of his three day burn). Under OBSCR, the forecast has to be good for the first day and at, least fair for the second day. If the forecast was for fair on Friday, then that is probably the 1 of 3 days to which Gary refers where it was off. This illustrates once again the inadequacy of the present system since the forecasts seem to be wrong so much of the time. Jay

It's evident that the air quality in the valley is particularly bad because of the fires. Barely being able to seen the sun is the first clue. Here's a sugges...tion to protect your health - Turn on your furnace fan full time and plug off the fresh air intake on your furnace. Then, if you have a Hepa (or better) filter on your furnace, it will gradually clean up the air in your house. Keep your windows closed, minimize your door openings, stay inside and minimize vigorous activites (and spare me the lewd comments ;-) ). This will minimize the effects of this harmful smoke. See more