Prince Rupert's city council got an earful at their meeting last Tuesday when three residents who live near the site of a proposed wood pellet facility strongly voiced their concerns over the project being built so close to their homes. The residents live in the neighbourhood near Westview Terminal and the adjacent rail yard. They say their worried about the possible health impacts of dust coming out of the wood pellet facility, the noise from the train traffic, and the possibility of trucks having to travel through their neighbourhood to get to the facility.
Prince Rupert's city council has given their go-ahead for the pellet facility being proposed by Pinnacle Renewable Energy Group, but they did vote to have the city write a letter of support the project after the company made a presentation to council early this month. None of the residents who came to voice their concerns had been to that presentation, which left the council in the awkward position of making reassurances to their own constituents on behalf of the company.
Camille Mark lives on Water Street near where the facility is proposed to to go. She's worried about dust coming from loading the pellets onto ships. He believes that the dust might have health implications for her son, who has problems with his immune system.
“And it's not just my child that has health issue, there are probably a lot of children who live in this town who have these issues and its just going to compound them.
Council explained that during their presentation, Pinnacle did address the concern of dust coming from the facility. The proposed wood pellet terminal would use slow-sleep conveyors, and cascade spout loading and unloading, among other things included in the designs. The company believes that this will prevent the dust or smell from the terminal to waft over Mark's neighbourhood and the rest of the city. Pinnacle is also intending to put shrouds around the lights and not to use fans in order to keep the light pollution and noise to a minimum,
Mark remained unconvinced that what the company is promising will be affective keeping dust away from her home because of the dust cloud that regularly forms on Ridley Island, but that she would like to see how successful other facilities that have these design features to cut down on dust; features that the the terminals on Ridley do not have.
“ I understand the idea of creating 12 more jobs, But in the long run, you're just going to be creating more jobs in the medical industry,” says Mark.
Another resident from the area said she was worried about increased noise coming from the trains in the rail yard near her neighbourhood, and from increased truck traffic going down to the facility.
The terminal is designed to be supplied almost entirely by rail, but the company's COO, Leroy Reitsm, says that doesn't mean there won't be any truck traffic at all, but that it will be kept to an absolute minimum.
“If we did allow truck traffic it would be very limited and likely coming from a local plant,” said Reitsm, during the company's presentation to council.
The council was less convincing when it came to the problem of noise caused by the trains. Mayor Jack Mussallem said that they were told that the only noise would be the noise that is already made by the trains moving to and from the rail yard. It wasn't said if this noise would include train whistles that are people living near the container terminal hear late into the night. Deputy-mayor Sheila Gordon-Payne tried to assure the irate resident that council was aware of the problem of noise from the trains.
Eventually, council members decided that it would be better if the company were to meet with residents to hear their concerns instead of themselves trying to relay that information. When exactly this meeting between Pinnacle and residents will take place will have to be determined at a later date.