In 1998 the city of Prince George created a non-profit society called PGAIR (Prince George Air Improvement Roundtable) after concerns about the air quality in the city were raised due to local industry. PGAIR is a community organization that has a variety of members including some government representatives, with a plan to reduce the amount of pollution in their local airshed. And though the society keeps a careful watch on the city's air quality, tests that were gathered 18 months ago showed formaldehyde, a carcinogen, at levels nearly 20 times that which is acceptable. But those results weren't made public until just last week.
It's examples like this that MLA Rob Fleming says illustrate our government's mishandling of environmental matters.
Prince George's case is an example of what can go wrong when industry is already a local fixture. And it probably only helps to solidify in many Kamloops citizens mind's just how much they don't want this gasification plant in their city.
The plant, which has already been issued an operating permit by the provincial government, is a incineration plant to burn old creosote railway ties. It will release harmful gases into the atmosphere that have already garnered attention from local doctors as they are known carcinogens that will be harmful to citizens health. But the plant isn't just harmful to people. Ultimately, it will affect both the air and water quality of the immediate area. Kamloops' carbon footprint will even increase from the plant alone.
But whether people want it or not government has basically given it a green light.
The plant itself that is proposed is where a lot of people's concerns are coming in, as it is basically making Kamloops a laboratory for testing. This type of plant has been tested in labs but only on a small scale. The size of the plant proposed for Kamloops is larger than anything tested before. And now this experimental type of plant is being transfered from a unversity setting straight to the banks of the Thompson River.
So what could our government do? Fleming says that the province needs to stop blocking the federal government's environmental report from being done. If the federal government were to do an environmental report on the project it would created a window of time that citizens could use to voice their concerns so that the federal government would actually hear them. It would also open the project up for new scientists to study and give feedback on the plant.
But along with the cuts to environmental funding in the latest provincial budget, the outlook of stringent government monitoring on the incineration plant looks less hopeful.
"Government doesn't generally follow up on [air quality] readings on plants of this type," Fleming said. "Enforcement of environmental monitoring in B.C. has declined 50 per cent against environmental violators."
The case in Prince George is a perfect example of government's lack of action and followup concerning environmental issues, making the chance that a similar lack of action could be seen with the Kamloops incinerator forefront in people's minds.
"If the people don't want it why are we still talking about it," said Derek Cook, a Political Sciences teacher at Thompson Rivers University.
With the provincial government giving this project a go ahead against citizens wishes, what does that say about our democracy?
People are against this, and yet government is letting it happen.The Kamloops city council even voted unanimously not to support it. But despite all the resistance this project is getting by local citizens, it doesn't look like it's slowing it down.
With things of this nature we have to ask ourselves what the risk we are willing to live with here is? And more importantly says Fleming, what risks are the government willing to take concerning both it's citizens and the environment.
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