Sure is good we are regulating camp fires has really help???

Guess we just keep blaming the road dust and homeowners trying to keep warm. Heaven forbid we should go after the industrial polluters and their bottom line.

Hey Canfur is doing their part for clean air quality.
I noticed they have an idle free sign up at the front gate at Intercon pulp.

>Heaven forbid we should go after the industrial polluters and their bottom line.<

That is a bit unfair!

Please inform yourself about all the pollution control equipment built by the local pulpmills over the last two decades! Tens of millions of dollars have been invested and improvements are still being made on an ongoing basis!

Is there such a thing as a zero emission pulp mill or a zero emission refinery? I doubt it. But, you recommend "going after them." What exactly do you mean by that? Do you have the technology to make industry totally non-polluting? If so, let us know, please!

Why are you getting air quality information from Dennis Fudge? Why not try the Ministry of Enviroment . Their business is monitoring aire quality.
I really don't buy Mr Fudges explanation that a high pressure system traps particulate. I always thought that a low pressure system traps the junk we put into the air to give us poor air quality.
If you notice that on a bright clear day when all those domestic fire places are going the smoke rises to the heavens.
And for those that think Prince George has poor air quality check the GVRD web site for air quality at Abbotsford and Chilliwack.

>wrinkledawg:
Hey Canfur is doing their part for clean air quality.
I noticed they have an idle free sign up at the front gate at Intercon pulp.<

The sign is there to remind delivery vehicles to shut off their engines while unloading! The diesel fumes get into the air intake system and the working people inside the mill would have to breathe them.

It has nothing to do with pulpmill emissions but a everything do with showing some common sense and respect for the workers.

Now, when are we going to ban remote car starters?

Gee diplomat I hope I did'nt strike a nerve.I see your pretty pro Canfur.Anyway maybe you can write to your MLA or whomever as your idleing your way thru the drive thru at Timmy H's about banning remote starters.

wrinkledawg, we have to work together at reducing emissions, don't we? It doesn't make any sense to excuse nay pollution by pointing out other instances that may be even worse.

How long I idle my engine at Tim Hortons depends on how fast the line-up is moving. I have no control over that - sometimes it takes 5 minutes or more to get a cup of coffee and a donut!

As far as remote starters go:

Does it make any sense to idle one's engine for 30 minutes in one's driveway while one is having breakfast? Now, that is something that can be controlled by simply not doing it. A car warms up much faster while it is being driven and it is better for the engine to drive the car after a couple of minutes of warming it up. Automotive experts are all agreed on that.

As for the no idle sign at Canfor: now you and others know exactly why it was placed there by Canfor, that's all.

Well Diplomat,I guess you should know I try to lead by example.
My vehicle has 100% syntetic Lubricants.
(it cuts down on warm up time BIGTIME)
I DO NOT idle my vehicle any longer than necessary as I am so phuckin cheap(I squeeze a nickle till the beaver shits.)
Plus I walk into Timmy's to get my java to avoid the damm lineups at the drivethru's.On a busy day I get served way faster.Try it sometime.
And plus how much is your coffee now that you wasted 5 minutes Idleing away???.I guess we have to agree that everyone has to start doing their part to clean up the air quality around here if we don't want to start packin oxygen bottles.
Have a good day.

Wrinkledawg: "Have a good day."

Thank you! Actually, I have always used Mobil One synthetic in all my vehicles for the same reason. And yes, when I do get trapped for any real length of time in a so-called "fast food" line-up trying to grab a quick cup on the go I wish I would have just parked and ordered one from the counter.

Have a good day, too!

Drive around town anywhere on a cold day while an inversion is present and you will see an exrtaordinary amount of wood fires burning in PG homes. I hate to bust your balloon guys but fine particulate from wood burning stoves is extremely dangerous (more-so than second hand smoke) to ones health and studies show that those who burn are more likely to aquire lung problems and pneumonia. Wood burning in PG is a MAJOR factor in our air quality and early death of males due to respiratory problems.

Mike, getout from under the log. This morning the atmospheric pressure is at 100.1 which ia about as low as it gets. The PM10 reading at the CBC transmitter is 3 and at the BCR Industreial site its 16 and Plaza 400 its 14. I mention the CBC transmitter site because it is the closest monitor where you clame all the wood burning is taking place.
And yes there have been studies done by the Ministry of Health a few years back in the use of wood burning in a home. The particulate readings are as high as 300% above the recomendations set out by the BC Enviroment in their daily monitoring of air quality.
Where you get the info that its harmfull to "men" I dont understand. Particulate is far more harmfull to our young children then to adults.And dont forget that as we sit by our fire place we are also sucking away on something even more harmfull a cigaret.
Happy New Year to All

Diplomat ... you said:

"Do you have the technology to make industry totally non-polluting?"

Not for much of it ... but smart money is on placing that industry which operates on the principle of reducing the effects of pollution by dilution where it does the least damage. In the case of air pollution that would be out of the valleys. It really does not take a rocket scientist to understand principles which have bee understood for probably over a century but were never regulated by government. In other words, it does not really take "smart" money at all; it just needs money with a conscience.

I’ll tell you a related story. Just over a decade ago, when the Russians were first visiting PG due to the McGregor Model Forest partnership with the Gassinski Model Forest in Khabarovsk Krai, they asked the Northwood Pulp engineers about how they ensured that they were not discharging chlorinated dioxin and furan effluents into the Fraser. They were told about the recent changes in regulations and the process of switching from Chlorine to Hydrogen Peroxide as a bleaching agent.

One of the Russians asked where the discharge was in relation to the water intake. He got strange looks. “Downriver, of course” they were told, with a definite tone in the response as to how "stupid" the question was.

The Russian, sensing his question was not well received, responded with what was the “eureka” answer which went something like: "Well, if the regulations would require the "fresh" water intake for the industrial use to be downstream of the discharge, then there would be little need for further regulations on quality of effluent. BTW, that came in 1992 through the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which resulted in the establishment of the Hydrogen Peroxide plant here.

The decrease of a healthy lifestyle and associated early deaths caused by polluting the environment in the immediate vicinity of our urban habitat is becoming ever more apparent, just as the major industrial injuries and deaths in the harvesting sector of our forest industry. Yet, we are, in both cases, pointing fingers in all directions to determine who the real culprits are. Average individuals have virtually no voice in the matter, other than to vote with their feet. We can see that enough have been doing that in the past.

How long it will take those who see themselves as laying the lifestyle foundation for further growth to do something that will make a noticeable difference is yet to be seen. It may not happen until the pulpmills will be shut down due to lack of a market for the product at the cost of production.

Dilution is not the answer either. Every day new processes are being invented to reduce pollution more and more.
We have to show some patience in the meantime.

The Russians shouldn't be too smug. They should look at their own ongoing pollution and past records, like Chernobyl and the Soviet Army using East Germany as a toxic waste dump for over four decades.

Clean-up costs just for that have run into many billions of dollars and are still not complete.

They can learn a lot from us and our industry if they are serious about it.

Diplomat .... you said:

“Dilution is not the answer either.”

It has been the answer, and continues to be the answer in the majority of cases when we are dealing with toxic substances.

We use water to flush our own human wastes into the nearest body of water. If in a city like Victoria, it goes straight into the ocean; some cities have only primary treatment before it hits the river, others have secondary, and this city has had tertiary treatment for something like 20+ years and is likely one in a minority. So why do we not treat our human waste at the source and reduce the amount of water usage? Likely for the same reason industry does not.

Pulp Mills are notorious for water use. There is one in Meadow Lake which is not near water, thus has a virtual closed loop system which recycles much of the water back in for industrial use.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/pp/en/storyoutput.cfm?storyid=74

Industry changes for a variety of reasons – public pressure, economic necessity, regulation ….. other than that they are like the rest of us, they follow the path of least resistance.

We have shown patience in the past …. we have called it the smell of money, as have other communities before us ….. but we are getting worse, not better, thus patience has not worked …. time to go the public pressure route, whether it is with industry or regulators or clients of the companies.

Others have demanded the paper must be shown to come from sustainably managed forests and an expensive evaluation and certification system has been put into place to monitor that. It is time we let those clients know that there are people dying and living with abnormal health stresses in the communities where the products are being manufactured.

As far as emitting pollutants into the air, industry is given permits as to the type and the amount it is allowed to dump into the air shed in PG and other communities. That amount obviously needs to be reduced or ways found to reduce it for short periods of time when weather conditions do not provide for proper dispersal.

As far as the Russians being smug, I did not find them to be that at all. I do not know if you ever worked in a situation where you knew that something could have been done better, but you were not in charge, so you simply had to continue to do as instructed or leave to work somewhere else.

These people were expressing their opinion and they knew full well that the system they worked in needed mega improvement.

Perhaps you have never been in a similar situation, where you travelled to another province or another country that you have always thought to be a bit more advanced than what you were used to, and then discover in one or more particular situations that such is not necessarily the case; that an obvious way of doing something is not being used at all, and you realize that either you are not all that far behind or they are not that far advanced.

BTW, at that time they were specifically looking at the development of our GIS system and the initial development of a digital based data system for decision making with respect to forest management practices. While our software was further advanced than theirs, we were surprised when they pulled out a laptop (East German) – remember this was over 10 years ago – and showed us that they had digital maps of their forest with some data overlays which generated responses to queries. In addition, the satellite photogrammetry they had access through the Russian government to was more accurate than ours.

They also brought an elder from the Nanai (the indigenous people of the region) with them while we were still having problems getting the local First Nations to become involved with us.

One final note .....

It is a pitty such aspects of such international exchanges do not find their way into the press ...... if they did, I think the general public would develop a bit of a different impression of other cultures and ways of doing business ....