Both Catalyst Paper Corporation and Wheelabrator Technologies Inc. say they intend to fully respect the decision made by City of Powell River’s mayor and council last month not to support a waste-to-energy facility in Powell River and none of the parties will be proceeding with any further developments on the matter.
“Emphatically no, we would not try and introduce something,” said Catalyst’s Powell River division manager Brian Johnston. “We would not consider locating Wheelabrator’s waste-to-energy plant on our site against the wishes of the local community, period.”
Or against the wishes of local government either, he said. “We are not in discussions, we have no intentions of getting into discussions, particularly given council’s clear statement that they’re not interested in having a waste-to-energy site here,” Johnston added.
At a special council meeting held last month council passed a resolution against the idea of a waste-to-energy facility in the community. In the weeks leading up to and since that decision, Powell River Regional District reaffirmed its own similar stance on the issue and many residents voiced their support for the resolution as well.
However, given that Wheelabrator had been looking at Catalyst’s Powell River mill property as a potential site for the facility, concern did arise within the community as to how much say the city ultimately had over the project’s approval on account of Section 21.
It gives Catalyst a statutory exemption from all regulatory bylaws that restrict pulp, paper or other mill-related operations within the mill site. However, Johnston assured that the clause doesn’t give the company free rein.
“If there is federal or provincial laws and regulations for the environment or anything else, we’re obligated to live up to all of those requirements, all of those regulations,” he said. “And whether there’s Section 21 or not is really immaterial. Section 21 says that if we want to make a change to our building here we don’t have to go to city hall to get a building permit to make those changes. Frankly, I don’t think that city hall is in a position to regulate some of what we do on our site...We deal with things that are well outside of the scope of anything that the city has knowledge of or expertise in.”
Although there have been calls from the public both recently and in the past to eliminate Section 21 entirely from the city’s Incorporation Act, where it has stood in effect since 1955, city staff have not received direction from council to do that.
“I know that there was an almost immediate reaction to the concern that Catalyst might ignore the wishes of council, the expressed wishes of council, and that’s not our intent and that won’t be the case,” said Johnston.
“Technology, 20 years from now, could change substantially and to the point where people say ‘Hey, this is not a bad thing’ and if that was the case and council was supportive of it and it was something that made business sense for us we’d certainly look at it but we have no plans of pursuing [a waste-to-energy facility] at this time,” he added.
As for Wheelabrator, the company will shift its ambitions to another suitable location. The project, wherever it ends up from here, is part of Metro Vancouver’s solid waste management plan, which has been approved by the provincial government. Metro Vancouver is anticipating that a waste-to-energy facility would handle up to 500,000 tonnes of solid waste annually which remains after waste reduction, reuse and recycling.
“We’ve been looking at multiple sites,” said Wheelabrator’s senior manager of business development Mark P. Schwartz. “We thought because of the mill operations and the downsizing over the years and the fact that there’s a hydroelectric facility [in Powell River]...that it made a lot of sense. It would have been a great project but council and the city and the mayor chose not to move forward, they chose to opt out.
“We’re just moving on,” he continued. “That’s it. Nothing else to say.”
