Many residents living in or passing through Powell River’s Historic Townsite may have noticed an unpleasant odour in the air over the BC Day long weekend. Some would argue it was pretty well impossible not to.
The thick, musty smell blanketed the area for several days, clearing up earlier last week. And while mill-related odours in Townsite have been less prevalent in recent years, they have been known to flare up on occasion. This time, however, was “definitely over the top,” according to Marion Blank of Rodmay Heritage Hotel.
“It’s not the first time we’ve had odour issues but this one, however, happened to fall on the busiest, hottest weekend we’ve had at the hotel,” she said. “Everybody in the neighbourhood really felt the impact. We had tourists from all over the world here and tourists from BC that were here for the first time in Powell River.”
One customer that weekend even cancelled her stay on account of the odour. “The woman was saying ‘my eyes are burning and I can’t stand the smell so we’re not staying.’ We’ve had that happen. And that has happened at the Old Courthouse Inn too,” Blank said.
There, potential buyers were reported to have come to tour the facility, which is currently listed for sale, only to pull out of a deal after the smell in the area changed their mind. “That’s like if you went fishing and all of the sudden somebody cut your line,” Blank said.
On Tuesday, August 7, Blank wrote an email to both local and provincial governments outlining her concerns on the odour and its impact. Over the next two days, she received responses from Dave Hebert, environmental protection officer for the ministry of environment South Coast region, and City of Powell River Mayor Dave Formosa who forwarded an explanation from Catalyst Powell River Division manager Brian Johnston.
In that email, Johnston described the odour as “an unintended consequence of a response to operational issues that [Catalyst was] trying to address” on Friday, August 3 and Saturday, August 4. He also stated that as soon as feedback was received from the community, work was stopped and an attempt was made to reverse the cause of the smell.
The odour was suspected to be from a mixture of hog fuel piles and sludge which are stored in a yard at the south end of the mill site. The material is burned to clear additional space, something the company calls “pile reclaiming operations.”
“This incident prompted us to examine our current procedures with an eye to ensuring that any smell released…does not impact the community,” wrote Johnston. “We see for instance that the weekend’s high temperatures contributed to the generation of the smell. In the future we will conduct our pile reclaiming operations during the cooler conditions at night or during periods of rain.”
He expected it to take the company “a couple of months” to work through the existing stockpile, which will be burned in a boiler in small batches to prevent further disturbance to residents.
Hebert also asserted, in his email, that the problem was being dealt with. “I am working with our air quality meteorologist to determine where and how these odours are being produced and will work with Catalyst on possible actions that could be undertaken to mitigate or prevent a reoccurrence of this issue,” he wrote. The mill has agreed to provide additional information about the incident, as well as complaint logs from the weekend. Hebert said the ministry would map the affected locations to determine the exact direction and source of the smell and work with Catalyst to achieve an odour management solution.
Blank said she was satisfied by the feedback she had received in response to her concerns. “I see a response that I haven’t seen before, especially from the ministry and especially from Brian and I see that the mayor was fairly proactive also,” she said. “That made me very happy really because we’ve been going to [Catalyst community] stakeholders meetings over and over again. I think that they’re on it and they’re thinking about it and they’re actually going to take some action.
“I’m not against the mill,” she added. “I like the mill being here. The reason why the Townsite is here and the way it’s intact is because of the mill’s history and the history of the town, but if we can just work together and solve some of those problems…”
