The man behind a proposed rail-tie gasifier in Kamloops is reconsidering his plan after facing a largely hostile standing-room crowd at the TRU Campus Activity Centre on Thursday night.

More than 500 packed the Grand Hall for the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce-sponsored “Rail Ties, Real Issues” forum to hear Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp. and Ministry of Environment spokesmen answer questions about the controversial project.

There wasn't a lot of love in the room.

City resident David Charbonneau asked ACC president Kim Sigurdson if he will go ahead with his plant no matter what. He noted Kamloops City council unanimously opposed the gasifier and many local residents have expressed loud, persistent opposition.
“Will you operate this plant in the face of stringent opposition?” asked Charbonneau.

“No,” said Sigurdson, after a short pause. “We are taking this (opposition) into consideration. “We are going to look at this and try to ascertain whether we should or shouldn't put it here,” he said. After the forum, he said he expects to make a decision in the next couple of weeks.

Also on the panel were consulting engineer Robert Pietrzak and Ministry of Environment air quality specialist Ralph Adams. Sigurdson told the crowd he started his company in part to find an answer to a growing environmental problem. Rail companies dispose of more than 25 million railway ties a year, often improperly. They are buried or used in landscaping. Sometimes they are burned in the open.

“Something needed to be done,” he said, adding he found the gasifier technology in North Dakota. These “green machines” can burn everything from coconut husks to creosote rail ties and produce less emissions than a wood stove or a car on the highway.

“We got into this to do something good,” he said. “We thought this was a very good technology, and we still think it is. “If you have an opportunity to change something that is being improperly done, wouldn't you try?”

He acknowledged he's made mistakes, largely in not speaking to Kamloops residents earlier.

“I guess I should have done this sooner,” he said, “but we're here tonight.”

Sigurdson said his company looked at other locations, including Ashcroft, but realized Kamloops offers the perfect location, as it is a major rail centre. In Kamloops, ACC can get four deliveries of rail ties every day, an important logistical consideration when planning to burn 500,000 ties a year.

In one of the first comments from the crowd, Rick Fleming told Sigurdson it's clear Kamloops does not want the plant. “You can see we really don't want this,” he said, to loud applause and cheers. “Take the damn thing to Manitoba or Alberta or Saskatchewan. Why in this city, where we already have air quality problems? Why is the Ministry of Environment letting this happen?”

Adams said the ministry has two criteria when judging applications for discharge permits — does a proposal meet emission standards and will it affect human health?

In both instances, ACC's proposal passed, Adams said. If the requirements are met, the government cannot say no. The proposed emissions from ACC's gasifier are extremely low, he added. Interior Health agrees there will be no impacts on human health. The highest emission concentrations will occur 300 metres from the plant. The closest homes are 800 metres from the proposed ACC site, Adams said.

The information did little to sway the skeptics in the crowds, who worried about lack of government enforcement resources and something going wrong. One man said he feels as if his family is being turned into “human guinea pigs.”

Sigurdson was asked what would happen if there was a fire in the creosote chips. The crowd was told there would be only two or three days of chips on site, and they will be stored in closed containers.

“If there is a fire, it will be suppressed. It is not something we will be too concerned about,” said Pietrzak.

One woman in the audience asked Sigurdson why Kamloops should tolerate any increases in emissions into the local air shed, especially when there is so much opposition. “What entitles you to use my children as an experiment . . . without my consent?” she said, to a rousing standing ovation from the crowd.

Sigurdson repeated what he said many times through the evening — the proposed emissions are less than a wood stove. He added local and provincial health agencies are on side with his proposal.

“We are confident what we would do would be safe,” he said.

“We're not,” yelled some in the crowd.

Tempers got shorter as the evening wore on, especially as forum moderator Murray Young tried to keep questions under his one-minute time limit, by cutting off the microphone if the questions went too long. Some of those behind the mike simply shouted their answers to the panel when they were cut off, often with the support of the crowd.

Sigurdson told the crowd several times he chose Kamloops for good reason.

“We thought we did this for the right reasons,” he said.

“You're wrong,” yelled someone from the crowd.

“Keep looking,” shouted someone else.

After the forum, Sigurdson told the media he will make his decision about whether to build here in the next week or so, after consulting with his company's shareholders. He will also meet with local politicians to help him gauge the full extent of public opinion.

“I feel good about this,” he said. “We're doing something good.”

rkoopmans@kamloopsnews.ca