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"Not in my backyard?"
To the Powell River Legacy group:
I understand your concerns I also wonder what will happen if you reach your goals. Our mill is on shakey ground, Paper prices are down, the Candian dollar is rising. A paper Machine in Port Alberni has been shut down. This is a big company, they can shut this mill down in a heart beat and start up the machine in Port Alberni. When you say you are not trying to shut the mill down or cause job loss you may be doing just that. Do you really care about the mill and it's employees? I really have to wonder. If you can come up with an alternative site for dumping this waste, say so. It seems to be a case of "not in my back yard". This mill has gone the limit reducing pollution. If you were here in the 60's you would know what I mean. But then I doubt any of you were. This is a mill town if you don't like it here......move. I've lived in the townsite for 66 years and worked in the mill for 40 years and I love it! I'll bet you don't post this. You only seem to have one side to your website.
Reply from PR Legacy:
The goal of PR Legacy is to help create a safe future for everybody who lives in Powell River. Safe environmentally, economically, and any other way that safety and health matters to the people who live here.
The Wildwood dump has never been a safe site. The old landfill was closed in 1995 when it became evident that it was poisoning the community of Powell River. Those facts are documented here. The proposed site does not meet even the minimum requirements for a modern landfill site. That much is evident from the Golder environmental assessment. We are as concerned as you are about making Powell River a thriving and prosperous community. Many PR Legacy associates have spent their whole lives here. So have their parents. Unfortunately, you can't build prosperity, - can't build a future on a shaky foundation of polluted land and a sick populace. It never worked and it still doesn't work.
As far as a alternate proposed landfill site, you are as welcome as any of us to come up with such a proposal. If it was a safe and well regulated facility we would wholeheartedly embrace it. If you'd like to join this group and make that your particular focus you will be most welcomed. We are also sure that the mill would thank you for your proposal.
This is not just a case of "not in my backyard". This is a case of protecting the longterm interests and well being of a community... a community we are both part of. We welcome your continued comments as our neighbour.
Reply 2:
Thanks for your response. I see your questions boiling down to ''who do you trust?" And, while I have not lived in Powell River for 66 years, I have lived here for over 1/2 my life, and I have very dear children and grand children in this town. Why should leaving even be a question? Presumably, if I left it would be because there is too great a risk involved in living here any longer, so why should I walk away from a mess? And what does that say about the people who stay behind----that they have their eyes closed? NO, leaving is not an option. This bit of paradise we all live in called Powell River is too good to contaminate for any reason---and that certainly includes that no further contamination be done for the sake of profit for some one in a New York board room.
The company is in trouble. We all know it. Many of the problems they have are self inflicted such as the pay out of over a billion dollars to the share holders some years ago, with the result that the company is in deep debt. Establishing a landfill is not going to save the company, nor will it sink the company, so lets get that out of the way. I'm sure we all can play '"Henny Penny --the sky is falling!'' all day, but to what advantage? All we will be left with is a mess on top of another mess. This proposal compounds a problem that is still a problem even though it has been here since the 60's. This landfill is already polluting the environment. Adding to it will make it worse.
Have other sites been offered to the company? The answer is a qualified ''yes''. We do know that the alternative of using Rebanco in Washington State is still an option. In fact, the costs of sending the fly ash to Washington might even be cheaper than what the company is doing now---especially if you consider the costs of remediating the land that is now the industrial waste dump site in Wildwood. The company could easily engage an agent to find private land if it wished to do so.
We have continued to ask why this mill does not look for uses for this flyash. Other installations use up to 100% of the fly ash which they produce. This mill sends 0% to be reused. Why not? Sure there are problems with salt--but the salt is introduced into the fly ash because it is ''cheaper'' to put the logs in salt water. The problem was created for profit, so the company certainly can solve it for profit too. And, this mill also said that they would find a use for its fly ash as ''a matter of priority'' ---that was in 1995.
By the way, have you asked Catalyst these questions? Did they even respond?
go well,
David Harris
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Names
I sent in the "not in my backyard" comments. I thought this was a legitimate site for discusion, points of view etc. It turns out that the people writing all the articles here are nameless and faceless. I wonder why? I think they are answering their own questions. The writing style is very similar. Dave Harris signed his name, we may not agree but I respect his right to have an opinion. His name is in the phone book and he lives here. Nameless comments are just a waste of the readers time. PR Legacy is not good enough. Who are you people? Why do you feel you have to hide your identity from the people of Powell River. (Note my name is attached.)
Ken Russell
re: Names
Well bully for you Ken Russell.
So you are willing to throw away and ignore all the concerns pointed out on this website simply because each posting isn't signed by someone you can look up in the phonebook? So it's the name that matters, not the facts?
Well I guess that's one way to look at it, some of us look at it differently. Here's another point of view:
For many years in this town, there has existed a climate of both mill-loyalty as well as mill-coercion. The loyalty is fine as far as it goes, but the coercion can get quite ugly. Some recent examples are those people who have businesses in town who signed the landfill petition, and/or hosted a petition in their place of business. Many have reported both publicly and privately of being harassed, threatened, and boycotted simply because of exercising their basic democratic rights.
Another example is less spoken of publicly. It is of many former millworkers who want to speak about the history of the landfill, and the mill's often onerous practices, such as shredding and puncturing the mini-landfill liner, skewing leachate collection results, and other related things. Why don't these people come forward and put their names on the record? Can you guess? It's called intimidation.
Things are changing now in this town. The tax base is shifting, the mill ownership is no longer what it used to be. The new owners don't give a rat's ass about anything but the bottomline. It's a different world we are living in, and coercion simply doesn't cut it any more. Internet anonymity can be a useful step in the right direction if it is used wisely. We are trying to use it wisely, by presenting our case first, documented by facts and reputable sources, with personalities coming second. Once the climate of coercion dissipates as the community wakes up to its true situation in a rapidly changing economic environment, more people will come forward. This way of doing business is an interim step.
Here’s what I mean:
In a safe environment, and in an open discussion: If you had the choice between everyone involved disclosing their identity up front, or some not disclosing their identity, you would obviously choose to have everyone disclose their identity right? So would I, and so would most honest people of integrity.
In an *unsafe* climate of intimidation, would you choose to have vulnerable people remain unheard? Does the price of being listened to automatically have to be: making oneself vulnerable to harassment and implicit threats of violence? Is this the only way that would satisfy you?
Is it not possible to have a “legitimate site for discussion, points of view etc” in a climate of intimidation, if contributors have the option of anonymity? This has worked many times before on open internet forums and can certainly work here too…if we make it work.
Oh and by the way, there are many names of PR Legacy members all over this website, we just don't care to advertise them.
Did you read this recent comment:
http://prlegacy.org/node/119#comments
"someone from the mill said that any business owners that had petitions or signed them is hanging on the notice board at the mill. I am NOT for the record in favour of the mill closing and hope that my business will not be in jeopardy because of this error."
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I will leave you with this Upton Sinclair quote:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."