It's worth putting up with the temporary fumes for finally getting a more lasting solution for the poor road conditions we have put up with for years. A Big Thanks to all involved in the construction. It's a great job well done and we hope it will hold up to all the frigging logging trucks that kept tearing it up through the years.

I am grateful we have house construction in the city. I am also grateful that their construction meets the building codes.

Since when has society made a decision that the standards of safety that have been set with good intentions can be disregarded just in order to finally get some work done which should have been done some time ago?

We have the forest industry which seems to be arguing that same point. We need to get the beetle killed timber out, therefore we cannot afford to clamp down on road standards, working time standards, etc, to ensure that drivers are not killed when doing their job.

The airport in Tennessee which saw the short haul plane crash seems to be operating on the same principles you espouse. Better to keep traffic moving than to keep it moving safely. Only one controller on duty, and that controller had 2 hours of sleep between shifts. So around 50 people ended up dying.

I am sorry, but I cannot accept your cavalier approach to such things.

Opacity .....

The water condensate is most certainly masking the lower part of the plume, thus making it an exercise in judgement as to what the opacity of the key pollutant particles as they exit from the stack would be.

That being acknowledged, it appears that the opacity immediately above the top of the condensate portion of the plume may be around 20% or so. It is thus most likely that the key pollutant particles components would have a higher opacity percentage the closer one gets to the stack. That is the norm.

In addition, I would think that if the criteria set cannot be measured due to a different process being used than contemplated by the Ministry in writing the permit, that a different and equally effective measurement be found and written into the permit.

Are we observing the inability of the Ministry to enforce emission standards on a simple backyard plant? If they are doing this poorly here, how on earth can they monitor major plants?

After reading the regulations for Asphalt Plants (several times unfortunately) it is clear that the regulations were written to ensure the profitability of the industry NOT the protection of the environment or the health and welfare of the people. This is may not be surprising when you consider the strong influence of lobby groups representing industries interests. These lobby groups and other representatives of industry actively participated in the writing of the current regulations. Unfortunaly the public only seem to get involved after the fact, when we are faced with serious issues that effect the environment and our health.

Initially most people would respond that it is the role of our elected and public service officials to ensure the protection of the general population, but the reality is it does not work that way. The politicians listen to industry who buy them lunch, invite them to free golf tournaments and make major contributions to getting them re-elected. What have you done for your local MLA today! The public service officials listen to the elected representative, and hence we end up with regulations that offer little or no protection for the environment or your health and wellbeing.

There are individuals working within the various Ministries and our municipal system who are and were previously opposed to the location of the Pitman Asphalt Plant in the "Clean Air" zone of the city, but it was still allowed to be built. It is my understanding that Pitman were encouraged, by the council at the time, to move to this location.

It is my understanding that Pitman originally wanted to setup their plant in the gravel pit on Foothills. This would have required a change in zoning, which entails public notification. We the public would have then had the opportunity to express our concern as to an Asphalt plant being placed in a residential neighbourhood and adding further significant pollution to the bowl area. What happened instead was it was located as close to the gravel source as possible in a location with appropriate zoning. This was all done quietly and kept under the public radar.

The post by PaladinPPS is pretty sanctimonious, so I wonder where Pal's paycheck comes from. Definitely not "Industry" or their "Representatives", so maybe the money comes from the environment. Like money grows on trees. Or more than likely Pal's paycheck come from "we the public".

PPS. That should be spelt "whee, public money!"