Still a Glimmer of Hope for Cache Creek

(Aired on May 4, 2010)

The Community of Cache Creek may be getting some allies in their fight to keep taking Lower Mainland garbage. Their allies may be people they didn't expect - the people of the Metro Vancouver area and Fraser Valley area.

Interesting to note a column in the Vancouver Province today by columnist Brian Lewis, whose beat is the Fraser Valley area. He points out that Metro Vancouver, who are responsible for determine how the Lower Mainland waste is taken care of, have adopted a one-solution plan- waste-to-energy incineration.

The Fraser Valley, as everyone knows, is already the recipient of much of the bad air from Vancouver through prevailing winds from the coast. Many communities don't want additional toxins from burned waste, however small in number they may turn out to be. As Lewis points out, the government gave Metro a way out of their one-track mind by agreeing to extend the life of the Cache Creek landfill. Don't forget it was the impending end of the landfill that caused Metro to seek alternatives in the first place.

I like the idea of finding alternatives, and there is no doubt that alternatives have to be found. Landfills are an eyesore, and even if they're well hidden from the public now, as Cache Creek's is, the refuse will be in there forever, generating god knows what gasses as it sits there for decades. But by giving Metro a way to buy some time, the government gave Metro an opportunity to find more acceptable solutions, perhaps better and safer technology. Metro didn't buy into the idea. They're still going full steam ahead with their thoughts of incineration.

But a number of political types have started to speak out against Metro's bullheaded approach to disposal, and in the end, that may give Cache Creek the longer lease on life they would like for their landfill. And if that momentum gathers steam, Metro may have to change its thinking. Time for John Ranta and the boys in Cache Creek to put their lobbying duds on and try to stir up the pot. It might provide some interesting results.

Of Garbage and Industry

(Aired on January 8, 2010)

The communities of Ashcroft and Cache Creek are happy this week. They have an extension to their landfill that could keep the operation open until 2037. All well and good, but of course they need customers, and that's a bit of a problem, considering their major client, in fact their only client, is making plans to dispose of their garbage elsewhere. And as much as I like having jobs in our area, surely we're to the point in our development that we should be looking at alternate technology to disposing of garbage in a landfill. Incinerators are a good option if handled properly. Technology is available that would create virtually no toxins from incineration. It might cost more, but maybe that would start to get the message out to "go green" and try to make some positive changes.

On another environmental topic, I wonder how long it will take before Kamloops gains back its reputation of being a big industrial town and start driving away business that could come here. I remember years ago when the Cancer Clinic was being talked about, some doctors had a major say in driving the project to the Okanagan, because they said they didn't want to come to Kamloops because of its reputation as some sort of big industrial centre. And at that time, we only had the pulp mill. Now we're going to have a gasification plant that burns creosote ties, the mere mention of which scares me half to death, and possibly some sort of biofuels plant on the Reserve. I wouldn't imagine it would take long to get that bad reputation back at this rate. Seems a shame when we've spent so much promoting the great lifestyle here in Kamloops. Doesn't take much to turn that image 180 degrees in the opposite direction.