Temiskaming Speaker
Wednesday, January 9, 2002
 
Incineration debated at Bennett info session
by Diane Johnston
Speaker Reporter
 
KIRKLAND LAKE -
 
Proponents of a proposed incinerator in Kirkland Lake to treat contaminated materials say the need is there and the technology is sound.
 
But opponents say incineration is outdated technology that produces toxic byproducts.
 
The benefits and risks of the project were debated before more than 125 people at a Saturday, January 5 information session at Northern College in Kirkland Lake.
 
The session was hosted by the Temiskaming Federation of Agriculture, which has concerns about studies to date examining the project's impact on the district's farming industry. (See related story on page 6A.)
 
AT ISSUE
 
At issue is a proposal by Bennett Environmental Inc. (BEI), a thermal treatment company with its head office in Vancouver.
 
The BEI plant would treat up to 200,000 metric tonnes of material such as soils, demolition waste, underwater dredgings, and packaging material annually by a two-stage incineration.
 
The materials have been contaminated by chlorinated and non-chlorinated compounds, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), coal tars, wood preservatives, and pesticides.
 
The material would first be burned in a kiln at temperatures up to 800 degrees Celsius. The gases
would then be heated in a second chamber to a temperature of more than lOOO degrees C for more than two seconds.
 
"If we put our technology against the tightest standards in the world, we can meet them today," said Danny Ponn, BEI's vice-president and chief operating officer.
 
"We believe that our technology is sound."
 
But combustion of PCBs can lead to the creation of even more toxic dioxins and furans, said Paul Connett, a professor of chemistry at St. Lawrence University in New York who has researched waste management issues, particularly dioxins.
 
He said dioxins can interact with proteins in cells, changing their biochemistry.
 
He likened their effect to “throwing a hand grenade" into the heart of cell biology.
 
Adults are sensitive to exposure to PCBs and dioxins, said Neil Carmen, a former chief of a regional stack sampling team testing air emissions at industrial plants in Texas from 1980 to 1992.
 
But for a human fetus, "a single assault at a very early developmental age can affect its immune system, its reproductive system, its intelligence quotient," said Mr. Carmen, who is now employed by the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.
 
He said people have complained of miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects, and childhood cancers in communities where incinerators considered state-of-the-art were located. Some blood samples have elevated dioxin levels, he said.
 
"It was as if we were permitting the creation of sacrifice zones," he said.
 
"We already live in a contaminated environment. We don't need a single molecule more of PCBs or dioxins," he told the audience.
 
Both Mr. Carmen and Mr. Connett were brought to the meeting by Public Concern Temiskaming, a group opposed to hazardous waste incineration.
 
"DESTROY THE MATERIAL"
 
But leaving contaminated materials in the sites where they are found or in landfills is not the answer, said William Mills, an Arnprior-based consultant brought on board by BEI last month.
 
He pointed to the rising levels of PCBs found in animal tissues in the Arctic.
 
"You've got to destroy the material," he said.
 
He considered emissions from the sites themselves a more serious problem than any caused during the materials' destruction.
 
In 1991-92, he oversaw the incineration component of the clean-up of a heavily contaminated site in Smithville, near St. Catharines.
 
Based on his experience in that project, he said exposure to PCBs and other contaminants "has been significantly reduced by cleaning it up."
 
Dioxins and furans are already present in food products, said Robert Willes, chairman of Cantox
Environmental. The Mississauga firm is working on human health impact study commissioned by BEI.
 
Mr. Willes said focusing on emissions from a single facility is not a solution.
 
Based on their data, he said the BEI plant would not add significantly to existing levels of contaminants already present in the environment from other sources.
 
"This proposal is aimed at getting rid of many of these substances that's contributing to that load," he said.
 
NEED TO CLEAN UP
 
Mr. Carmen acknowledged the need to clean up PCBs, but said safer technologies -such as a closed dechlorination system operating at room temperature -do exist.
 
But improperly operated, a chemical dechlorination system also poses an emissions problem, said Mr. Mills.
 
He said he knows of several instances when materials were eventually sent to BEI's Quebec facility when alternative treatment methods failed.
 
BEI reports that test burns at its similar but smaller plant in St. Ambroise, Quebec, near Chicoutimi, have achieved a PCB destruction rate of 99.9999 per cent. Its emissions of dioxins and furans are also well below Environment Canada standards.
 
But Mr. Carmen warned the audience to be suspicious of test burn reports.
 
During his work in Texas, he said test burns were conducted as the incinerator was running at optimum conditions "and even then things go wrong."
 
Fires, explosions, or even an electrical power disruption can cause a "tremendous" release of gas, he said.
 
"You can have a release today and it may not show up in the food chain for weeks, for months, even for years."