Perhaps we should set a date not too far in the future to take measures to ensure we don't reach critical values.

Perhaps we just have to ban burning, bring in regular vehicle inspection, or clamp down on industry.

I may have to stop roasting marshmallows or have my car tuned up, but if it means we can all live longer, it is a sacrifice I can make.

On the Hart you could smell chlorine and see it in air - or maybe it was all that gas from overeating turkey - it certainly was not smoke from wood burning stoves.
At least smoke does not stink ! What a joke to ask industry to reduce emissions whenever possible - you can ask - who responds?

I remember reading a story that indicated when the idea of building pulpmills in PG was born, 3 local doctors advised city council AGAINST allowing them to be built in the bowl area.

They ignored their recommendations.

Then today when we have an air quality advisory it's the residents that are told to reduce emissions. BIG business (pulpmills) are requested to cut emissions whenever possible.

Has any of the pulp mills actually ceased production COMPLETELY in an effort to improve air quality during advisories.
I don't think so.

When the air quality is poor... BIG industry should be told to stop production until the air quality improves.

That's the way I see it and that's the way things outa be.

newtechie

you might not understand, but a pulpmill can't just "stop production".

Maybe its time for a cold shutdown...

Sure PGDriver. Lets do a cold shutdown of our pulpmills. You are correct that you won't have to worry about air quality. For that matter you won't have to worry about the city - been to Mckenzie lately?

Yeah, sure have some real brainiacs on here today.

Canfor should be made to use that 122 million to clean up their act right not wait for some stupid studies. Next thing you know it will be used for bonuses for executives because they did a good job on the studies. The oil refinery down here is very bad also, Alberta has lots of money and should put some into big improvements in this plant. Well I will just keep on using my pellet stove and rediant heater, no wood, no gas. I think the city needs to take action on big industry not just blame the wood stove and car drivers. Have you waited behind a city bus waiting for the light to turn lately?

I have had an epiphany. My wife of many years has headaches from time to time and I have put them down stress, etc. Since her retirement a year ago I have had to throw that one out the window.
Last night driving in from Beaverly to our home in Highland Park, she developed a heachache. I put it down to long day, visiting the kids, etc. Today she is out like a light....I checked the PG Air Quality Site http://www.airhealthbc.ca/pg.htm

and it says don`t worry....I will now listen to my wife more often and screw the technical stuff....wasted money on this site.....WHAT GIVES???

What gives is that the air here is putrid.
When I read the obits and see how many are dying from cancer or lung related diseases I have a hard time agreeing that the mills are key to PG's economic health. Dying aint much of a living.

re:Stompin Tom

You might not understand either but I've read there are an average of 26 deaths in the Northern Interior Health Region and the cause is directly related to poor air quality.

Pulp mills should be forced to spend money to devise ways they can shutdown when told too.

Or we could just continue to let innocent people die.

Listen to this... I have a VERY good friend whose son required a "puffer" at the tender age of 1. He used that puffer for 2 solid years until my friend and his family relocated to Kamloops. As soon as they arrived in Kamloops his son NO LONGER REQUIRED the use of any puffers. They've been there for 3 years now and he's never had the need to use one since.

And you say pulp mills just can'r shut down? That's because they haven't been proactive in their support of reducing deathly toxins into our airshed.

I propose that each time we have poor air we fine them if they continue to operate.

Do you know what would hapen then??? NOTHING... that's because they'd rather pay the fine than pay millions to devise a way to shut down and start up in an efficient manner.

Why is it that BIG business always gets a "free pass"?

Why look at big business....imo it is an accumulation of all types of pollution, be it railway trains, cars or wood burning stoves. We got ourselves into this mess collectively, so why is it just one part of society`s fault?

Should be looking at the pellet plants also,the only time they are in compliance with the air discharge permit is on the days the stack is being tested. The rest of the time the fans are cranked right up to gain production.

I agree Runner46...


But BIG business never has to alter or curtail their production schedules in order to reduce emissions during bad air quality advisories.

It's always looked solely upon the little guy to act.

That's just not right.

Residents prohibited from using wood burning appliances. Industry asked to voluntarily curtail emissions.

The MOE and the City must think we are complete idiots to believe residential wood burning pollution exceeds that from industry. Born at night, but not last night.

Something to ask yourselves,

There isnt a sawmill in the area that has run since the 23rd, all the pulpmills are running at their lowest possible production levels because of the holidays, the railway is at a virtual stand still and there is virtually no truck traffic right now. As far as I know the pellet plant is also down till Monday.

Do you think the fact that there are about 50,000 people living in and around the bowl combined with the fact that there is a strong inversion in the weather might have something to do with it?

Stompin Tom. The pulp mills are running flat out as they always are. There is no such thing as operating at their lowest possible production levels.

If there is any doubt as to where the pollution is coming from just drive up past the Jail on 16 East and look at the Pulp Mills, Husky Oil, etc; It couldnt be more obvious.

It a rare site indeed to see much wood burning in the bowl, and the Railways even under normal conditions dont pollute that much.

Years ago every bloody house in the City and outlying areas burned either wood, or coal, or oil, and there were 18 sawmills or planers along first avenue with bee hive burners , and we didnt have these kind of pollution problems, nor did we have the same rate of Cancer. In addition most of the population smoked.

You dont have to be a genuis to figure out where the pollution is coming from.

Palopu,

years ago? Those pulp mills have been here for over 40 years.

Years ago how many air test stations were there around here "years ago"?

Here is a link from 2005 with all air polluters from industry listed from the province of BC.

http://www.bcairquality.ca/reports/pdfs/2005_emissions_inventory.pdf

Hey Resident...

Great post. I agree completely with you.

Enough of the maybe and shoulds....how do we find out who was running at what for the past three days....What we have here is the perfect time to analyze who is not working, working, etc.
I personally have been running around town a fair amount trying to get shopping done before xmas eve. Would it be fair to say that auto emissions would be more than normal?

Get real Runner46,then Vancouver would have bad air quality every day...besides cars dont have that rotten cabbage stink I have been smelling all day.

"If there is any doubt as to where the pollution is coming from just drive up past the Jail on 16 East and look at the Pulp Mills, Husky Oil, etc; It couldnt be more obvious"

Palopu is BANG ON with this comment. You don't need studies, measuring devices or scientists, you just need your own eyes and today was a perfect example. When entering the city from 16 East you basically had a beautiful clear winter day at airport elevation. Once you approached the city heading down the hill towards the jail, you could see (plain as day I should add) the crap spewing from the pulp mills and filling up the entire bowl with a big soupy, stinky, toxic mess.

Anyone can drive up 16 East going towards the airport can take a look for themselves the next time we have an AQ advisory. Heck, on many days you won't even need a formal advisory to see how the garbage from heavy industry fills the bowl. There are many days where it's bad and an advisory isn't issued because it isn't quite "that bad". Of course, just because an advisory hasn't been issued does not mean that the air is good or even acceptable . . .

IMHO the City, MOE and the Province have completely sold out the citizens of PG when it comes to trying to achieve a healthy environment in our city (airshed in particular) and any suggestion otherwise by those in a leadership position within those organizations is nothing more than lip service. To be blunt, this situation WOULD NOT be accepted or permitted in Vancouver, Victoria, Kelowna, etc., so why is it okay here?

For those who want to look at details and figure out waht the "problem" is, the province has improved its previsous web page in some ways.

“Why look at big business....imo it is an accumulation of all types of pollution, be it railway trains, cars or wood burning stoves. We got ourselves into this mess collectively, so why is it just one part of society`s fault?”

BC’s air quality page is here: http://www.bcairquality.ca/
Click on the link called “BC’s Air quality Readings” in the left menu panel, 2nd bulleted one from the top

At 12:30 am on the 27th of December I am looking at the AQHI which is a factored combination of the 4 top air quality pollution criteria indicators.

The top three throughout Canada are Ozone, PM2.5/PM10 and NO2. Big City Canada is typically concerned about Ozone. We have no Ozone problem here.

At the moment the reading is 6, the highest of any in BC at this time. Williams Lake was the second highest at 4 and the others, including Quesnel, was 2. I do not think anyone can argue that, proportionately for the amount of population, people in Williams Lake and Quesnel drive less, have less grit on the road, use less wood burning home furnace. They have inversions just like we do. Almost the whole province has had fog conditions overnight for the last two nights, including the lower mainland.

We typically have a relatively low reading since we have mainly a PM problem while the Fraser Valley, for instance can have a combination of a lower PM than we do, but also have an Ozone problem since the wind from the Pacific brings much of the Ozone up the Fraser Valley. The combination of the two can provide a higher AQHI number than a high single reading.
Read about the interpretation here: http://www.ec.gc.ca/cas-aqhi/default.asp?lang=En&n=79A8041B-1
Read some more info here: http://www.ec.gc.ca/cas-aqhi/default.asp?lang=En&n=065BE995-1

Air quality advisories in PG are typically based on PM – 24 hr running average of either 50 or greater for PM10 and 25 or greater for PM2.5.
The Environment Canada site at http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/airquality/pages/bcaq-009_e.html had a number 5 from a measurement taken at 12am Sunday 27, 2009
As posted above, the BC Air quality site had a reading of 6 based at the same time.
------------------------
Back to the ministry site. You should have come to a part of the site which has a map of the province. Click on Prince George. It will open up to a detail of the map around PG. It has all the monitoring station. Most are just weather condition stations.

Plaza 400 is the main one – its reading at midnight for the top criteria pollutants
- is Hydrogen Sulphide 7.5ppb at “fair”
- PM10 = 31.8 “fair”
- PM2.5 = 22.1 “fair”

Gladstone
- PM10 = 5.1
- PM2.5 = 17.0
- Hydrogen sulphide not monitored there

Lakewood
- Hydrogen Sulphide = 7ppb “fair” (nothing else is monitored there anymore)

NEXT, and most importantly, if you are at one of the above monitoring site and have the table in viewing mode, you can click on one of the criteria, such as PM2.5, and see a graph for the last 24 hours in one hour increments.

Gladstone PM2.5 one hour average was highest at 49.9 at 2pm and then dropped down to 27.8 at 4pm and back up to 46.4 at 5pm, then down again to 15.4 at 8pm. The 24 hour average was highest at 31.7 at 6 and 7pm. The provincial objective is not to exceed 25.

BCR only has readings for PM10 (isn’t that handy!!!)
It started recording PM10 hourly averages above 50 at 5am with a reading of 60
That kept going up to 96 at 1pm and dipped to 48 by 9pm, reaching 25 at midnight.
The 24 hour average exceeded the 50 objective from 1pm and peaked at 60.3 at 8pm, and has dropped to 58.7 at midnight.

The Lakewood station had a reading of 20ppb at 1pm for Hydrogen Sulphide. That is right at the limit of the provincial objective.

The jail has monitors for Hydrogen Sulphide and Hydrogen dioxide.
At 11pm HS read 9.6ppb.

----------------
Conclusion???

When there is an inversion, pollutants, wherever they come from, do not vent out of the valley. Close all the doors in the house and some or all in the family start farting. Whose at fault for the stink?

If no one speaks up, we do not know.

Who do we ask to stop? The most prolific and stinkiest one? Of course!!!!! That is where one starts.
-----------------

In this City, where does the HS come from? How come Lakewood has such a high reading? What is the source there? Or is it travelling along the Nechako from the Mills?

On thing we know, some people are more sensitive to it than others, including headaches as symptoms. Highland Park subdivision is close to the Lakewood monitor.

CH is an area which might have a high concentration of wood burning furnaces/fireplaces. When on looks at the hourly ratings of PM2.5 they do not appear consistent with the likely peak operating hours for those appliances. Proximity to the BCR its rail operations, trucking, and some of the plants still operating to the south of it might be a greater factor.

Bang on NMG.

----------------------
Runner46 wrote:
"Enough of the maybe and shoulds....how do we find out who was running at what for the past three days....What we have here is the perfect time to analyze who is not working, working, etc."

We have a lid on the valley. ANYONE who does anything will have an effect of the air quality. If there are fewer manufacturing, transporting, commuting, heating their homes, etc. it will simply take longer before the effect is felt. We have had about 3 days of nice, clear, virtually windless days.

The temperatures in the valley have been warmer than up at the airport. INVERSION time, folks.

If more industry was working, and even if people were heating their homes with wood and gas longer because of the temperature, the objectives would have been exceeded early and would have gotten higher.

Get some wind, a bit of snow, and it will all go away again. It will be out of sight and out of mind till the next time. THAT is the main problem!!!

We put the highest concentration of industry, which generates the highest need for transporting feedstock and goods in one of the poorest vented valleys in BC.

I am not sure how long it will take the genius politicians from the feds to the province to the municiplaity to ADMIT that and start doing something about it rather than pointing the fingers at each other and giove $25,000 for another study by UNBC that they will say will take 18 months and then it will actually take 4 years and still nothing definitive.

Why people with PhDs do not understand that from the beginning is beyond me!!!

"I personally have been running around town a fair amount trying to get shopping done before xmas eve. Would it be fair to say that auto emissions would be more than normal?"

Nope!!

Just think it through. No one shops downtown where the main monitor is at Plaza 400. The main criteria pollutant produced by automobiles are the precursors to ozone - NOx and VOCs.

We do not have an ozone problem in this city. We also do not have VOC monitors. The key pollutants from Husky, for instance, are not monitored by MoE on a regular basis. Recently it was found that there are some high readings of formaldehyde. So far, I believe, nothing has been done to determine the likely source.

We are playing with the health of people in this community. Yes, it is a probelm for all of us. I know I am not generating formaldehyde in my daily activity. So my role is to support anyone interested in finding out who is. It is the responsibility of the likely producers to stick up their hand and say "I might be the one" and then work on getting rid of it.

We also do not have as road dust problem at this time. It is grit that is frozen into the ice and snow left on the road. In the spring one can see the dust plumes from buses and other vehicles that travel close to the curb on occasion.

So, no, the major polluters of the citeria pollutants over the past two days have not been the people driving cars. The ozone reading at Plaza 400 was a high of 11.2 at 3pm. The objective is 80ppb hourly average.

Here are the readings from the Fraser valley 2 days ago (latest available since the GVRD keeps its own records)

Kitsilano 1
Pitt Meadow 2
Surrey 6
Langley 19
Chilliwack 21
Hope 26

See how the citeria pollutants are carried up the Valley by the offshore wind and Hope is the beneficiary.

Yes re locate or don't live here all year around.

I live on the Hart, all you honky tonks downtown can turn you nose up to us, but we dont have air quality problems like you do.

If you do a little research with local doctors, if you have family members on puffers, they will tell you to move to the Hart, to Tabor Lake, to Beaverly.

jonnyPG,

"Get real Runner46,then Vancouver would have bad air quality every day..."

they do, they just pass it along. There is this little thing called wind, there is always a breeze off the ocean, that carries their problem to somebody else.

You ever notice the problems occur when the air is still in PG?

For those you who think that big business doesnt care, look at Canfor, they shut down Netherlands Sawmill, North Central Plywood and Rustads Sawmill, all just to lower the air polution.

Based on the following information which appears on the Prince George Transit website......public transit on city buses should be free on Sunday December 27, 2009.

____________________________
Free Fare
Fare for Clean Air

The City of Prince George will be offering free transit on days where the Ministry of The Environment issues air advisories. Transit will be free starting at 11:59 p.m. of the day the air advisory is issued until 11:59 p.m. of the day the advisory ends.


Information on when free transit will be in affect will be available at:

1) Major newspapers

2) Free newspapers

3) 94.3 FM and 97.3 FM

4) Radio Stations

5) Info banner on Opinion 250

6) Digital signs posted in our buses

7) At the BusLine number, 250-563-0011

8) The City of Prince George Service Center

re: Stompin Tom - Canfor shut down Netherlands Sawmill, North Central Plywood and Rustads Sawmill, all just to lower the air polution.

That's funny Stompim Tom...

But ya wanna hear something about NCP. They had this 2 million dollar thingy called a Precipitator and if you ever drove up the BCR hill (on the way to the airport) you'd think there was nothing but white smoke coming from it.

That white stuff was acutally about 99% steam. The Precipitator is a machine that uses electricity to scrub emissions and release moisture. NCP had lots of 45 gallon barrels that were eventually filled with thick brownish/black sludge from this machine. That stuff would normally have been released into our airshed.

So... there are indeed other sources of pollutors in PG but I still agree with the 3 doctors back in the early 60's... we shouldn't have allowed the pulpmills to be built with the bowl area. Our air becomes trapped here on windless days.

many of you will find this story interesting I believe.

http://www.princegeorgecitizen.com/20091218999921726/local/news/canfor-pulp-146s-odour-plan-coming-up-roses.html

newtechie,

If I am not mistaken all 3 pulpmills in PG us Precipitator's, and a fair amount of the upgrade money is going that way.

I remember a close friend laughing many years ago because people in PG were screaming bloody hell about all the new smoke coming from one of the pulp mills, he said they had installed a Precipitator and the vast majority of the smoke was now nothing more than steam, but the public didnt want to believe them.

Anybody wonder why we get so much icefog now?

A few days ago they had an air advisory for the Bulkley valley Telkwa/Smithers area.

No burning of wood unless wood is the only source of heat (no hydro, no natural gas connections to the house).

NO pulpmills there for hundreds of kilometers so one can't automatically blame the pollution on those.

Fine particular levels were extremely high!

Why?

Perhaps the air that crosses the Pacific coming from Asia (China, Korea, Japan etc) is already full of industrial pollution like fine particulates which can drift across continents and oceans.

China's industry is powered almost exclusively by burning of coal.

The whole world must go to cleaner sources of energy and the sooner the better.

re:Stompin Tom

Hmmm... why does the city still have that distinct "smell of money" than?

The ignorance on this site is thicker than the air today.

Want to see SOME of the pollution coming frm the mill stacks. Look at them during the summer, not the winter! Nice and blue when I drive in to town along 5th from Foothills. In the winter the water vapour condenses as soon as it hits the cold air and you get gigantic plumes. Only some of the pollutants are visible in the first place. In the cold weather they are hidden by the white plumes.

Want to see which plants are still operating? Go on a cold day. Those using heat in the process that they do not recapture will show up right away.

The Northwood mill is the largest single polluter in town. It has not been upgraded. As luck would have it, little of that hits the Hart and it is far enough away from the bowl that it likely does not affect it as much as the mills that are closer yet have some better control technology on them. Of course, the Hart no longer has a monitor, so we really do not know.

There are precipitators on some vents but not others. For instance, the heat recovery from the black liquor has an older direct transfer system which still sends some of the gases up the vents.

Note the wording on the Canfor site that speaks a bit about the projects being done with the federal funding:

"These projects are the Prince George Pulp Mill Odor Reduction Project and Increased Biofuel Power Production Project."

The odour reduction project is the one I mentioned above. The increased biofuel Power production MAY result in higher levels of particulates or at best, no increase and also no reduction. More efficiency as a rate against pollutants. But the pollutants stay the same and the mill stays put and we will continue to have no air improvement from that source, only a longer life from the mill.

"Other projects being actively considered involve replacing fossil fuel with biofuels and fitting environmental controls to existing equipment that will result in improved air quality."

So, still improvements to be made, but not sure whether they will make them.

The key here really is that they keep their old permits intact from the point of view of how much they can put into the air and improve the control technology so that they can increase capacity and keep the mill longer.

Do not expect anything in the way of real reduction from the Pulp mills.

Pacific Bioenergy is practically the same.

There is a cap, but there is no real reduction in the cap. And when someone like the old pellet plant exceeded its limits for years without the knowledge of the MoE since they were not monitoring it, then that become the defacto permitted level rather the the legal level that had been established.

So much for the quality of the local MoE operations. Totally useless!!!!

Burns Lake has sawmills, no pulp mills. If I remember correctly, the Babine Forest Products operation still has a burner.

Then there is Decker Lake as well.

Don't know which ones might be shut down.

Here is a 5 year old site regarding the 3 beehive burners in the Burns Lake area.

http://www.cleanair.ca/case_beehive.html

Loud and clear is the statement: "Beehive burners were closed down in the United States over 30 years ago."

If not all three, at least one of the burners is still operating to this day!

"Hydrogen sulfide (H2S, CAS# 7783-06-4) is an extremely hazardous, toxic compound...It is therefore commonly encountered in places such as sewers, sewage treatment plants (H2S is often called sewer gas), manure stockpiles, mines, hot springs, and the holds of fishing ships. Industrial sources of hydrogen sulfide include petroleum and natural gas extraction and refining, pulp and paper manufacturing, rayon textile production, leather tanning, chemical manufacturing and waste disposal."
http://www.safetydirectory.com/hazardous_substances/hydrogen_sulfide/fact_sheet.htm

"Conventional wood stoves
As discussed previously, particle emissions from incomplete low-temperature combustion conditions are dominated by spherical organic carbon particles and low levels of elemental carbon (EC/TC ratios 0.01-0.11), while soot and high EC/TC ratios (0.50-0.75) characterise emissions from incomplete combustion at higher temperatures [12,62,64,67,81]. Kocbach et al. (2005) observed soot, but not spherical organic carbon particles, in ambient samples collected in two areas dominated by smoke from conventional stoves. The samples comprised emissions from different combustion conditions and several wood species, suggesting that the contribution from conventional stoves to ambient air was mainly soot [52]. In contrast, another study indicated that spherical carbon particles observed in ambient air samples originated from household wood combustion [61]. Although soot seems to constitute a large part of the emissions from conventional wood stoves, organic carbon, either condensed onto soot or as individual spherical carbon particles, also appears to be an important contributor to the particle emissions from this class of combustion appliances. Gaseous organics emitted during poor combustion conditions are also likely to contribute to the particulate OC levels due to formation of secondary organic aerosols [118]."
http://www.particleandfibretoxicology.com/content/6/1/29

Industry is the culprit and the city needs to address it instead of taking the easy way out by appearing to do something about our air quality by blaming the lowly taxpayer.
The free bus service is so stupid, imo. Expose yourself to more harmful particulates while waiting for the bus...dumb!

Canfor has not received any of the federal money grant yet. Canfor must first identify what the upgrades are which Canfor plans to do. Then there is an approval/disapproval process which the projects must pass BEFORE they will be approved. Once they have been successfully completed to the satisfaction of the federal government the money will be forthcoming.

To suggest that somehow Canfor is going to pocket the money under false pretenses and use it for other purposes is certainly not based on facts but simply on hatred and loathing of industry/corporations, no matter what.

The suggestion to shut down cold all the PG pulpmills is a semi-stupid one. Where will all the jobs come from to replace those lost? How about all the secondary jobs?

How about shutting down other main polluters at the same time? The railroad, all buses, trucks, ambulances, fire trucks, all personal vehicles, snowmobiles...restaurants, shopping malls, police deperartments...natural gas furnaces...air traffic, FMC, the Husky refinery...snow removal?

Welcome to 1889!

"The ignorance on this site is thicker than the air today."

In milltowns which have had their mills mothballed the people are praying that they will be restarted. In Kitimat the union is trying desperately to purchase and run the Eurocan liner board mill to keep it OPEN!

It appears that some people HERE are praying that our pulpmills shut down!

GMAB!

diplomat,

Im going to get flamed for this, but I would suggest that if you could do a study of those on here who are bitching and complaining, the vast majority have come to town after the pulp mills and sawmills built this town. Now there are here to reap the benefits of the spin-offs, and therefor in their minds are worthy of a greater treatment than those who built the town.

Many at Chernobyl came after the plant was built as well. They trusted the government and the design of the plant.

Show me a promotinon for PG that encourages new businesses to come here as well as new residents that has both postives and negatives..... and where it might include negatives, that it talks about the air quality.

In the world of advertising, it is called false advertising. Car sales have to disclose problems, as do realtors with houses.

Why does the City and IPG not have to do the same when they sell their wares?

gus,

if you came here you did by choice, you also can choose to leave.

If you expect the Pulp Mills and the 1100 plus direct employees and their 4000 or so direct family members to lose their family supporting job because you dont like the potential pollution, your an idiot.

The pulp mills here helped create a great city and many, many have prospered from them, if you dont like it I suggest you use the other option available to you.

gus,

when you purchase something, do you do any research? There is this thing called due diligence. If you take a case to a court of law and you cant prove due diligence, your out on your ass.

I suspect your one of those people who expect everything to be handed to them, for the government to have a safety net hanging out for you at your every move.

Take some responsablity for your life, dont expect others to do it for you.

gus.

by the way, its not called false advertising, its called promoting.

When you see an add on TV for a move, is there a disclaimer at the end that says, oh by the way, before you spend your 10 bucks on tickets this movie sucks, just wanted you to know?

When you choose to go to dinner, is there a sign at the door which says "dont order the pasta, we suck at that"?

When you order a Big Mac is there a warning label that says "eating to many of these may kill you"?

Grab some balls and start looking out for yourself instead of blaming your problems on everybody else.

So, Stompin Tom, if I read you right, you figure it's okay to spew crap into the air as long as someone makes a buck off of it. Nice.

You have a choice whether or not to have a Big Mac. Last I checked, breathing was not an optional activity.

MrPG

IF you read my right you will see that I believe if a deal is made, then you stick to it.

Millions and millions of dollars have been spent by the pulp mills to run at the level allowed by the MoE. If they fail to meet those standards they are fined a great deal of money.

Now we have an air advisory for one day and the whiners are out in full force, the mills should shut down if there is an advisory, my wife has a headache, I have heard enough.

There are actions taking place to improve things, to make things better for all of us, but that takes time. For the idiots to start crying that the mills should shut down although that is almost impossible to do, I get a bit cranky.

But 1st and foremost I believe that you also have to look out for your self and your family, you cant stand around and bitch and cry and expect handouts. I lived in the bowl for 5 years, my wife and daughter both ended up on puffers. Did we bitch and cry about it , expect to kill the entire economy and expect 1100 families to lose their jobs? Nope, we did the research, found out where the best areas are to live according to air quality and we moved there, my wife and daughter no longer use their puffers. Nobody lost a job, no crying about it, we just did something.

Now the bitchers and complainers might want to look in the mirrors. Were those mills there when they moved here? Were they there when they bought their homes?

"If you expect the Pulp Mills and the 1100 plus direct employees and their 4000 or so direct family members to lose their family supporting job because you dont like the potential pollution, your an idiot"

Perhaps not as much of an idiot as you for thinking that the needs of 5,100 people somehow take priority over the needs of the remaining 70,000 people in the city. That's not even me being selfish, it's just a simple numbers game. The needs of the majority should take priority over those of the minority, especially when the discussion centers around a fundamental issue like air pollution that people simply cannot avoid. To be blunt, the basic expectation to have clean air is more important than your job.

"The pulp mills here helped create a great city and many, many have prospered from them"

Great use of past tense and I do agree that they did help put the city on the map and people did prosper from them. That being said, it's completely irrelevant to the future of the city. 20 years from now, there may not be a single pulp mill running in PG and the population could be over 100,000 people. Aside from the "back when I was a mill worker" tales that you'll tell your grandchildren, the history will be completely and utterly useless. Your grandchildren will likely even ask you why you put up with breathing the toxic air for so long, when the rest of the world started caring about environmental issues like that in the 1990's, LOL. Just don't get embarassed when you can't answer their question of why you didn't do anything to try and make it better :)

MrPG

if you would like to take some reading comprehension lessons, it might do wonders for you. My comment about Big Macs was directed towards choices that gus has made. He can choose to live where he wants, he can also choose to leave. Nowhere did I say he was forced to.

Of course your like most bitchers and whiners, dont bother responding with the truth, take a half truth, combine it with some sensationalism and you have your statement. Next time dont be an idiot.

NMG,

if you know anything about economics and spin off you will know that those 1100 jobs translate into an average of 4400 spin of jobs, which translates into a population effect of over 16000 people.

Simple black and white, very close to 25% of the population of Prince George earn their living off the back of those mills.

If you take it a step farther, you take away that many tax paying households, how much more are you able to pay to maintain your service base? What happens to the value of your home?

I ask you one simple question. How many times have the Pulp Mills in this town broken the MoE levels of allowable emmissions in the past 12 months?

This is a mill town. Sawmills were here(before pulp and paper mills) and beehive burners...and an honest effort is being made to improve the air quality with the help of new technology and a lot of money.

Realistic people don't expect PG to have pristine air and the ambience of an alpine health resort.

In the Fraser Valley the stench of cow manure, pig crap and chicken sh*t is downright sickening and I find it offends my senses way more than a bad air day in Prince George.

Steel mills stink, chemical factories reek and the list goes on.

Feed lots smell like hell, endless are the activities of mankind that can do a number on our health and quality of life.

Some airports are in the middle of cities, Mexico City, Frankfurt and Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam come to mind. Planes roar overhead so low that one can see the brand name on the tires - every few minutes during the day. Seatac airport is like that, planes come and go thundering over the subdivisions with roof rattling noise...

Nothing is perfect.

Prince George is heaven compared to that.

Count your blessings.

I take it that some of you don't see the merit in corporate or social responsibility then? ...hmm... every man for himself??

Words of wisdom: "No man is an island."

There are things that should be done to allieve the negative aspects of pollution that are not being done. That is a gross injustice to all of us.
There seems to me no good reason to allow the polluting to continue when the means to end/minimize it exists. Ban me from using a wood stove when industry can spew Hydrogen sulphide?? I don't think so. I would have a different attitude if it was OC that was indeed the issue.
Correcting the pollution problem is in no way shape or form, a threat to our industries!
We must not allow government or corporations to sidestep the problem by avoiding the real solution(s).
(...and we cry about fluoride in the water...man, have we got our priorities ass backwards...)

Yes Stompin Tom I am familiar with economics, multiplier effects, etc. That said, I've yet to see an independant and conclusive study that shows what the actual multiplier for the pulp mills in PG actually is. I know that the folks who are employed by the mills will say that without them we'd have nothing, but they don't exactly provide an independant analysis. I would fully expect that as a result of technological advancements, the number of people actual working at the mills has surely decreased over the decades, yet our overall population has remained pretty constant. Based on your assumed multiplier, the population should have decreased in that time. Why hasn't that occured? We've even had mills shut down and burn down in recent memory, yet the population hasn't really taken a huge hit. Why not?

One obvious answer is that we've also diversified the local economy over the past 10-15 years, and created other types of jobs. For example, more people now work at the Northern Health Authority than the pulp mills. What is their multiplier? Surely these people also buy vehicles, go out to restaurants, the facilities would need contractors to fix things, etc. Who is more important to the local economy, the people working at the mill, or the larger numbers of people working in health care who provide their services to a catchment area covering half of the Province?

When it comes to continued job creation in the future (and thus population growth) you need not only established industries (such as forestry based operations), but also new industries, an inflow of people who are willing to invest their money into our city, etc. There is little doubt that the percentage of people employed in manufacturing in PG (as a percentage of total people employed in PG) has been declining, while the percentage of people employed in other sectors has been increasing. Given that our population has been somewhat static, this would seem to suggest that we are replacing manufacturing jobs with other types of jobs. In short, we are becoming less reliant on manufacturing and more reliant on other sectors. Basically we are becoming more diversified, which is a good thing for a healty and functioning economy.

In order to keep that trend going, however, we need to ensure that the city is positioned to keep attracting new business and new growth. You do that by building a city that people want to live in and a big part of that includes building a place where people believe they can live without putting the health of their family at risk. For example, as we speak, the city is in the process of establishing a cancer care center, that should employ a large number of people with good paying jobs, so that people in the north can be treated for this disease without going to the LML, Kelowna, etc. Want to take a guess at how difficult it may be to recruit health care professionals for such a centre when they know damn well what kind of environment they are headed up to? Have you ever talked to some of the younger medical professionals who came here, loved the city and wanted to stay, but simply wouldn't because of the air quality issues that impacted them and their familes? Ever notice how many of our "best known" local docs are really getting up there in age? Ever wonder why we have such a hard time replacing them?

As to whether the mills have broken the allowable levels of MoE emissions, I honestly haven't a clue. What I can say with absolute certainty, is that if the amount of allowable emissions is set to a standard that still results in people getting cancer, respiratory illnesses and prohibits them from breathing clean air, then they need to be revised. And no, I don't care about "sticking to a deal". Standards and regulations change all the time (generally as a result of public demand or pressure) and the allowable emission levels should be no different. Industry should operate within the parameters that we allow them to and if we as a society or city want to make those parameters more stringent for whatever reason, then industry has to roll with the punches. We should have the right to tell them how to operate in our environment, not the other way around.

Commoner:"(...and we cry about fluoride in the water...man, have we got our priorities ass backwards...)

I don't think so! It's so easy with the fluoride addition! Just turn it off! It is a two minute job!

With the overall air pollution it is very difficult!

It will take some time and a lot of new technology and money!

As to the existence (or non-existence) of mills having a very minor impact on a city: ask the people in Kitimat, for instance! And don't think that the smelting of aluminum doesn't cause any air pollution!

NMG,

some numbers for you to chew on.

Prince George population 1981 67,559
BC population 1981 2,744,467

Prince George the 2nd largest city in BC in 1981

Prince George population 2006 70,981
BC population 2006 4,113,487

Prince George 13th largest city in BC in 2006

These numbers are as of 2006, our latest. What are they at the end of 2009? Closures of Rustad Sawmills, North Central Plywood, Woodland Lumber, Winton Global just to name a few. Where are the population numbers since 2006.

The rest of the province had a growth of 33.28%, Prince George had a growth of 4.8% in the same time period. Then factor in what has happened in the last 4 years?

Prince Georges 2 largest growing employers since 1981? Northern Health (which encompasses the entire north of BC, basicly everything north of and including Quesnel) and UNBC.

So our main growth has come from government projects? Where is the growth from free enterprise, from industry? What is the population numbers since 2006? All I hear is constant cutbacks in the schools because enrollment has declined, year in and year out, if enrollment is declining in schools, the the population is declining.

Stompin' Tom .....

You give me two choices when there are many others. Limited vision is a common problem I do not suffer from.

I choose to stay and be part of the solution to improve the city in TODAY's terms and for the FUTURE.

I am not stupid enought to want the mills shut down tomorrow. Don't put words into my mouth that I did not write!!!!

You have no clue what I see happening, nor do you have any clue how one plans and implemetns such a project that is very much a political as well as a technical process.

Nor do I necessarily want them shut down. Take a look around you. Look at Port Alberni, for instance, and the pulp mill there that totally turned around.

Improve or move. Move to a new location outside of the bowl, with a new plant with new technology that will handle the situation we will encounter here over the next 50 years.

The mills are going to shut down sooner rather than later because of the feedstock change and the technology change that is happening. We are not going to buck the trend.

Look at the WHOLE picture and get rid of the myopic view. Air quality in this community is not the only thing that drives the length of the life of the mill. Far from it.

Here is some information on a proposed new pulp mill in Tasmania that would produce 820,000 tonnes of pulp a year for an infrastrucure cost of A$1.4 billion with an expansion possibility to 1.1 million tonnes.

The latter is approximately the capacity of Canfor's 3 mills here.

If Canfor has not been working on it already, the time will come shortly when they need to look at building one new mill to replace 3 old mills to increase the operational efficiency both technically as well as for manpower.

All I am saying, is look at the realities of the marketplace, the inefficiency of the current operations and the opportunities to take the next step to stay competitive.

It is head out of the sand time.

Actually, based on those numbers, the population of the Province has increased by almost 50% since 1981, whereas PG grew by roughly 5%. To me, among other things, that clearly suggests that our past economic strategy we've adopted in PG has SEVERELY limited our growth. This strategy basically involved clinging to heavy polluting industry under the assumption that it was going to be our meal ticket in the future, much like it was in the past. The evidence clearly shows that this is not the case and you are quite correct, if the rest of the Province is growing, so should we. We then have to look at reasons as to why that isn't occuring:

- Maybe people really don't want to live where the air sucks.
- Maybe we've done a terrible job of creating the types of jobs that will attract immigrants and other people to PG.
- Maybe mill and forestry based jobs aren't all that appealing to the more recent generations of people entering the workforce, despite what people currently employed in the industry may think.
- Perhaps population growth actually depends on more than a 60K a year job being available to people. Maybe, just maybe, other factors such as a clean environment are just as important to people. Heck, perhaps people would even choose to make 40K a year in a city they can breathe, as opposed to 60K in one where they can't.
- Maybe we've been completely duped in PG and while the rest of the Province has been chugging ahead and developing their economies to be well positioined for future growth opportunities, we've hitched our wagon to an industry in it's maturity stage (some may even say in it's decline stage), with no coordinated plan as to how we will replace it.

As to the growth in the health and education sectors, I wouldn't exactly call these government "projects". Government funded, sure, but the term project sort of implies a short-term time frame. Are you suggesting that health and education services will only be needed for the next 3-6 months? Given our aging and unhealthy population in the north (contributed to, ironically, by pur terrible air and lifestyle), I think it's a pretty safe bet that we'll be needing every single health care worker we have and more as we move ahead. As for UNBC and CNC, they are quite simply needed facilities for people in the north. We simply won't grow our northern cities in the future without an educated population. The days of the 60K a year blue collar job out of high school are dead. You want prosperity for your kids? Make sure they have an education and lets make sure they can get access to that education locally.

Unfortunately, sometimes you have to take a couple of steps back before you can take 3 ahead. The city, IMHO, is at a transition point where it will start to become a more well rounded and divisified city. The average income may indeed go down and the population may dip a little, but if we can get to the point where we build a more attractive city (attractive in terms of diverse job opportunities, the environment, etc.), we'll be much better poised to grow into the future, as opposed to if we just tell people to suck it up and move if they don't like the air. That latter strategy is what we've been doing for the past 30 years and like your numbers show, it doesn't work.

Stompin Tom ...

Look at the Forest Industry over the same period. Up to the time of the housing crash in the USA, there was increased capacity, increased production AND increased efficiency both in the woodlands operations as well as manufacturing operations. The number of people employed in Forestry harvesting and manufacturing has been dropping steadily for many decades.

The mills, whether pulp or lumber of board, have been making improvements to create more cost effective products, not to improve the air quality. They have their permits to put emissions into the air. Any emission reductions were serendipitous.

When you state: "Where is the growth from free enterprise, from industry" I totally agree with you!!

However, turning the time back to 1960s is not how that new industry is going to come here. Looking forward to the next 20 to 30 years is what will create new BUSINESS as well as INDUSTRY here.

AND whether you like it or not, industry is dependent on more and more brain rather than brawn.

AND whether you like it or not the coming 2 decades is going to be a workers' market

AND whether you like it or not, workers, when they have the option of where they will move to are looking for lifestyle and qulity of life as part of their palette of needs and wants.

Oh and I agree completely with gus. Nobody has suggested that we should shut the mills down. There are things we could do to help ensure that their future operations don't continue to have such negative consequences for the future growth of the city.

Sorry, here is that aussie pulp mill info http://www.gunnspulpmill.com.au/faqs.html

NMG, well put in your analysis of the population growth. It obviously has not been a sustainable situation we were put into. In many ways we are a very large version of a single industry town that fortunately was large enough to start more secondary and tertiary businesses and industries to service our own population as well as that of the greater region.

Some of the industry as well as operations like the University have gone even outside that Central Interior BC region and are providing consulting services to the province, Canada and the rest of the world and bringing the money back home.

NMG:"Nobody has suggested that we should shut the mills down."

Well, some on this thread proposed exactly that: Shutting down the mills.

NMG:"There are things we could do to help ensure that their future operations don't continue to have such negative consequences for the future growth of the city."

Amen to that!

There is no question that our reputation as a 'stinky mill town' has hurt our population growth over the years.

I would never expect the mills to shut down as some have proposed, but I do think they have been slow to act with respect to doing things to clean up our air (and our city's reputation).

MrPG wrote: "I would never expect the mills to shut down as some have proposed"

I just skimmed over the posts to see how many actually proposed the mills to shut down.

None on this thread mentioned anything about a permanent shutdwon. Two or three mentioned a shutdown during inversions, not a complete mothballing.

It is not feasible to shut down a pulpmill just for an inversion (spell air advisory) which might last 2 hours or two days or a week.

Shutting it down and then starting it up again (to run smoothly with the least pollution) will cause more overall pollution then just keeping it going.

If one requires them to shut down for every air advisory it may make more sense financially to shut them down altogether and move to greener pastures.

The mills are operating within the emission limits as set by the Ministry of the Environment.

Let's say the mills cause 50% of the total pollution and the other 50% come from other general sources.

One can make a case for the whole town shutting down during one inversion (no emissions from ANY source) and then it will be the mills' turn to shut down when the next air advisory rolls around.

However, if the ratio is: mills 10% and everything else 90% then the town may have to be mothballed.

:-)