Dear Sir:
I attended a March 4th community meeting sponsored by Rio Tinto where they attempted to explain why they thought the new Kitimat smelter should be allowed to produce 17 more tons of sulphur dioxide every day than the old shelter presently does, 42 tons vs. 27 tons.
Sulphur dioxide is what causes acid rain which kills trees and the life in lakes if it goes on long enough in high enough concentrations. The life expectancy of the smelter is 55 years.
The apologist for Rio Tinto, Mr. Morin, put forward the argument that the new smelter would pollute far less amounts of three dangerous and undesirable pollutants.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon emissions will be reduced by 98 per cent, gaseous fluoride emissions by 72 per cent and greenhouse gases by 36 per cent.
He called the first two really nasty. The upside of this for the company is that they are now able to use new technology that allows them to reduce their costs by reprocessing the elements that polluted in the past.
He seemed to feel that we should be so happy with that, we wouldn’t mind the company’s plan to produce more sulphur dioxide as it prepares to double its production.
The purpose of the meeting was to do the community consultation required to get the permit to do just that.
Understandably, Mr. Morin did not spend any time addressing the question of why the company was permitted to be such a major polluter for so long.
Nor did he touch on what they could have done over the years to reduce that pollution instead of waiting for a complete rebuild of the smelter. That would have been of high interest to a community that has suffered a very high number of cancers and respiratory ailments during that time.
Interestingly, a Globe and Mail story the next day described how Suncor Energy and Syncrude Canada are being taken to task for very similar emissions in the tar sands.
The argument for why Rio Tinto should be allowed to now produce more sulphur dioxide pollutants is that the company predicts these emissions to have little effect on the Kitimat/Terrace valley where most of the fallout will occur.
A few small, unused lakes will become more acidic but not Lakelse Lake.
It did not seem to occur to Rio Tinto that they could use the saving from reducing other pollutants to reduce the amount of sulphur dioxide pollution.
Scrubbers are available but Mr. Morin seemed to infer that they are used for heavy industrial polluters.
I guess 42 tons a day isn’t heavy enough for Mr. Morin. Besides, it presents him and his company with the problem of what to do with the collected pollutant.
Storage under the sea? Storage in a land-fill?
Better to build a high stack and disperse it into the air so that its disposal would be diluted, even if over a larger area.
In addition to the tonnage of pollutants involved, there are several equally large issues here. What gives a large corporation the right to pollute the community landscape? When do jobs become bribes?
What protection should we be able to expect from our governments? What constitutes an acceptable public consultation?
For something that will have such a major effect, Rio Tinto gave almost no notice to Kitimat and Terrace of its intent: two poorly advertised public meetings. The company has not shared its research. Government has not shared its role.
Rather, we have been treated to a propaganda exercise designed solely to allow the corporation to say it consulted the affected communities.
No one would say that the Kitimat smelter should not be rebuilt. But Rio Tinto should hold the public consultations on its projected sulphur dioxide emissions again.
This time they should do it right; involve all levels of government, give the communities sufficient notice, make their research widely available and be prepared to take responsibility for the pollution they produce.
With their enormous profits from the sale of the electricity they are not using in the production of aluminum, they can well afford it.
Rio Tinto does not have a social license to pollute.
Robert Hart,
Past Chair, Coast Mountain Group, Sierra Club,
Terrace, B.C.