Dear Editor,
Re: “Something’s in the air — again,”Column, March 11, “Everything has a price, including killing ‘that’ smell,” News, March 11.
I was an attendee at this important meeting. I was on time for the start and listened to the long presentation.
When the moderator went over the list of by-products produced by this site, he stated that “VOCs and C02” were the major by-products.
VOC means “volatile organic compounds” and CO2 is that nasty greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
Please look up “volatile.”
Just listen to the TV or radio or read any newspaper about how terrible too much C02 is.
Then it came to explaining just who the experts in attendance were.
In terms of the questions I had, there was a missing link.
I asked if there was anyone from the health department.
Where were any City of Richmond representatives or city councillors? Answer: Silence.
Maybe they were out of the room at the time, busy producing methane.
When I could, I asked another question:
“Is there going to be a carbon tax or a green tax on the CO2 produced by this site?”
“No” was the definitive answer.
A lady at my table had the best question of the evening and that was about the difference between the original permit (for emissions) that was permitted and the one now being considered and why Harvest Power was not held to the original permit numbers.
The answer was that Metro Vancouver did not know where the parameters were to begin with!
Someone or some party has used an ocean of green paint to hide the truth.
Call it green enough times and the cost doesn’t matter.
There were several thoughtful and intelligent alternatives from the audience, such as an incinerator with scrubbers and a high smoke stack to produce electricity back into the grid to directly reduce our electric bills.
Another idea was to ask the universities to come up with a solution.
Hmmm. No wonder that will not work.
Can someone please definitively say that this site does not produce harmful by-products?
Neil Filipek
Richmond
