Canfor Pulp Launches Odour Reduction Project

Monday, May 17, 2010 03:11 PM

Canfor Pulp Limited Partnership Board Chair Dr.Charles Jago, points out details of the odour reduction plan as CEO Joe Nemeth and Mayor Dan Rogers look on

Prince George, B.C.- Although the final approval has not yet been granted by Natural Resources Canada, Canfor Pulp Limited Partnership has officially announced the start of construction on its major odour reduction project at the P.G. Pulp Mill.

CEO Joe Nemeth says the project will cost about $11 million dollars and is expected to be complete in the second quarter of next year. When complete, the new technology will reduce total reduced sulphur (TRS) by 60% and that will be a significant improvement in the quality of Prince George’s air.

Nemeth says the project is one of four slated for the area which will cost Canfor Pulp about $157 million dollars. That is $37 million more than the amount the company is receiving under the Green transformation funds but Nemeth says the projects are important to the company and to the community “Ninety five percent of our employees work here and live here. To make such a change in the air shed makes us all very proud.”

Nemeth says the engineering work on the Odour Reduction Project was underway even before the Federal Government announced the Green transformation funds for pulp mills.

The project will use the best available technology to reduce the odour, and a second project still being developed will see the installation of an electrostatic precipitator which will make a significant reduction in particulate as well.

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Posted on Monday, May 17, 2010 03:11 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: porter on May 17 2010 3:57 PM

nice staging...

Posted by: Green on May 17 2010 5:07 PM

Despite the fact that it is coming out of our pockets in terms of tax payer money this is great news for Prince George hopefully it makes the difference they claim and hopefully the MOE will reduce their permits to ensure that we never see these levels of pollution again in PG

Posted by: Green on May 17 2010 5:07 PM

Isn't Charles Jago also the Chair of Northern Health?

Posted by: Savvvy on May 17 2010 5:09 PM

Glad to hear it. It's about 25 years late. Meanwhile, PG has a ridiculous stench and asthma rate.

Pollute our air, and we're supposed to cheer when you stop doing so?

Someone should've had the pants sued off them ages ago. The air doesn't belong to industry ...

Posted by: MiddleGround on May 18 2010 1:20 AM

It's obvious that Charles Jago is bringing his concerns about the health of the people who live live in his city to the board room of Canfor.

I look forward to his decisive leadership in the Canfor boardroom when it comes to continued improvements in our air quality.

Posted by: newtechie on May 18 2010 7:44 AM

re: Savvyy - Glad to hear it. It's about 25 years late. Meanwhile, PG has a ridiculous stench and asthma rate.

I have a friend who's son used a "puffer" from a very young age. When his son was about 5 years old my friend accepted a transfer to another city and AS SOON AS THEY GOT THERE his son was no longer reliant on that puffer. He's never used it again

How do ya like that? PG's air is toxic, we all know it, so why does the pulpmill get away with it?

It's not 25 years too late, it more like 45 years too late.

Posted by: metalman on May 18 2010 9:15 AM

There sure are a lot of folks who jump on the bandwagon and condemn the pulpmills.
You make it sound as though big business is deliberately poisoning the residents of Prince George, maybe some people watch too many B movies. The pulpmills MADE Prince George, before, all we had for industry was a few hundred gyppo bush mills, and a handful of larger sawmills and planer mills. Now that the city is more mature, and diverse, with the UNBC for example, there are other ways the economy can prosper, and our big industry is not so popular anymore. It's true, the pulpmills are responsible for a lot of pollution, especially in the earlier days, but public pressure, and increasingly tougher environmental laws have forced them to clean things up. These latest announcements from CANFOR only reinforce the fact that things are getting better, yet the many negative thinkers out there can only say "well, it's about time"
Have any of you noticed that the refinery emits the odd bit of smelly poison air? Have you noticed that the city is located in a bowl, and that we experience inversions from time to time? Is Canfor responsible for the location of the city and for the lack of continuous crosswinds? How about dust thrown into the air from untreated gravel roads? Smoke from forest fires, slash burning, and the dreaded back yard wienie roasting fire? Diesel exhaust from trains? I don't doubt the claims about people's respiration improving when they move away but every area has some sort of problem, you adapt, or you move.
metalman.

Posted by: gus on May 18 2010 10:42 AM

"Is Canfor responsible for the location of the city and for the lack of continuous crosswinds?"

LOL .... I , think you got that back asswards.

First there was the light, then bowl, then the First Nations, then the City, then the mills.

What the mills were responsible for is their location. In the mid 1960's, when the pulp mills came here, the effects of pollution from such mills were relatively well known. This is not new science.

I was living in Ottawa's west end at the time, some 7 km south west of the EB Eddy pulp and paper mill on the Ottawa River, within sight of the Parliament Buildings. There was no bowl.

They got rid of that mill a few years later and with it, the same "smell of money" as some refer to it here. Those mills should never have been built where they are.

We are still suffering from similar planning errors.

Posted by: metalman on May 18 2010 4:08 PM

Just tryin ta make a point here Gus, but you got me, you're right. The city was here before the mills and Canadian Forest Products and Intercontinental Pulp and Paper did indeed choose their locations, as did Northwood Pulp and Timber, for the proximity to water. Of course the byproducts of their processes were well known back then, but I would submit that the City Fathers of the time were less concerned with pollution than they were with getting big business to come to Prince George. The mills put PG on the map, with increased tax base, many many high paying jobs, which in turn further leads to an increased tax base as homes are built, and commercial buildings constructed to service the burgeoning population, not to mention the service industry to the mills, which itself created a large number of jobs. With 45 years of hind sight, it is easy to point out the poor choice of location for the pulpmills in Prince George.
metalman.