Another burning issue
City council dealt with a burning issue at their regular weekly meeting today.
Specifically, the issue of slash burning. Resident enviros Denis Walsh and Nancy Bepple wanted to stop the practice within city limits, the rest of council were okay with it.
“It’s hypocritical” to ban backyard cooking fires but allow slash burning, said Walsh.
An interesting comparison, one that has been used by opponents of the Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp. gasification project, and one that’s totally bogus. How can you ban backyard cooking and allow this terrible toxin-spewing outrate, they ask.
Of course, council would ban the ACC project if they could but fact is, a backyard barbecue puts out about the same emissions as the ACC plant would. At least that’s what the scientists say, though the facts don’t seem to hold much weight with some people.
Anyway, it’s kind of interesting that the same folks who voted on the side of slash burning — Mayor Milobar, councillors O’Fee, Lange, Harker, Wallace and DeCicco (Marg Spina was absent) are the same folks who voted in opposition to the cogen plant.
Question is, why is the notoriously polluting practice of slash burning okay, but a project that will have very minor emissions and be under extremely tight permit rules not okay?
Oh, I know getting rid of interface fire fuel is extremely important and it’s not possible to haul all slash to a chipper or a biomass incinerator, but would it be different if a hundred people showed up demanding that council put a stop to slash burning? You think?
ArmchairMayor.ca 
It seems I should retract my previous statement regarding John as not being a lawyer and do the honorable thing and appologize. Sorry ’bout that John.
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Nobody wants to see a burning slash pile in our valley. We would rather see green and healthy trees. However, the facts are that the pine beetle has decimated these stands of trees. What can be hauled away and used has been hauled away and used. What can’t be practically hauled away still represents a fire threat that endangers homes and people. Those in charge try to time the burn around a period of high venting to minimzed the impact. I don’t think these trees were pressure treated with creosote and we don’t plan to burn them 365 days per year.
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Well John, because you were a lawyer does not mean you are a lawyer and what your response to the above blog represents is a puddle of bile. Nothing was hauled away because no one wants to pay for it to be shipped and chipped. Slash piles are left for months on end waiting to be burned, waiting for the right venting index and there will not be a spontaneous combustion of this pile putting the homeowner that lives outside the prescribed burn area at risk in the meantime. You are a scaremonger and to burn and to gasify have to different results.
You should be thinking about sending those piles of slash TO the cogeneration plant. Don’t argue, find solutions and do your work.
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