A victory of science over politics?

Armchair Mayor for Saturday, Jan., 2009

The Ministry of Environment’s approval of the railway-tie gasifier is a victory for science over emotion (or passion, if you prefer), or a defeat for the democratic process, depending on which way you look at it.

There’s predictable outrage on the part of opponents led by the Save Kamloops group, which went from the top of the roller coaster last September when Kamloops City council sided with them, to a definite downward ride when the Interior Health Authority gave its stamp of approval last month.

Had IHA expressed any reservations, there would have been hope, but it didn’t. Could the MOE’s final approval be far behind?

No, as it turns out. There were expectations it would be final before Christmas, but Christmas came and went as the permit was fine-tuned.

After the lull, though, all was ready. The signed permit was copied to Environment Minister Barry Penner late Wednesday. Between then and Thursday, Mayor Peter Milobar and MLAs Kevin Krueger and Terry Lake were brought into the picture.

Normally, significant announcements like this one are made via the government MLAs, and sometimes even the premier, but not this one. There were no possibilities for grip-‘n’-grin cheque presentations, no press releases, no good-news proclamations. Just the anticipated condemnation from the environmentalists.

So, it was left to make its way into the public realm by whatever means it could.

Overturning the decision will be a tough row to hoe, though Save Kamloops is vowing to try. A meeting among some of its founders was held last night to map out some next steps.

Probably, it will continue on the two-pronged approach it used unsuccessfully against granting of the permit, calling upon both science and emotion.

The Save Kamloops argument boils down to this: the cogen plant is unproven and environmentally dangerous, but if you must build one, don’t do it here. They say it isn’t NIMBY, but if it isn’t, it’s pretty darn close.

Save Kamloops complained earlier that Penner wasn’t properly considering community opinion, while also contending emissions would create air inversion problems here.

For good measure, it tossed in arguments against spending public money in grants to resolve the railway-tie disposal problem. And besides, it said, the plant wouldn’t be good for the city’s image.

On its website, Save Kamloops stated that “the process of science is to acquire knowledge. The process of politics is to make decisions to resolve community issues.”

The environmentalists seem to have failed on both counts. They’ve not made a cogent argument on the science, though certainly not for lack of trying.

I’m not convinced, either, that Save Kamloops actually represents the majority of public opinion on this issue. It relies on City council’s opposition to the project as further evidence that the community is against it, but the fact is there’s been no groundswell of public concern.

If it could be shown that the council vote really did reflect the wishes of the community, I’d agree with them. No matter how good the science, no community (or neighborhood for that matter) should have something rammed down its throat just because the law says it’s OK.

As for the science, Save Kamloops began circulating a lengthy letter from anti-gasification leader Paul Connett yesterday, and will bring in an airshed expert by the name of Douw Steyns to talk about the issue.

In his letter, Connett condemns the ACC project on the basis of science, and offers quite a bit of conjecture, but doesn’t really say much about why this particular technology in this particular plant can’t work. In fairness to him, and to other objectors, they haven’t accessed a lot of the detail of the technology.

Because of that, there’s much talk of risk, but mostly in the context of a lot of “what ifs.” The key environmental objection of opponents is the air-quality one, and the MOE is clearly satisfied that air emissions are not a concern with this plant.

On the other side of the argument there are stats on the fact that most greenhouse gas emissions in Kamloops come from houses and automobiles, and that gasifiers are working fine in Europe.

Challenging all of this stuff from both sides is worthy, but this decision has been made. What’s left now is to bring all the science of the plant’s technology into the open so we can all understand it. And that should have been done before now.

Save Kamloops, of course, won’t give up. Politicians will avoid getting into it because they don’t see any way to win, so our MLAs are likely to claim it wouldn’t be right of them to interfere.

That leaves science.

Save Kamloops intends to apply to the Westcoast Environmental Law Association for a grant to help fund an appeal. I’m thinking it’s a long shot; the MOE clearly believes in the science of the project.