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Village, Belkorp do deserve that pat on the back

Former Cache Creek Councillor Darrell Rawcliffe responds to allegations that methane conversion at the landfill could have happened sooner.

Dear Editor

After reading the Letter to the Editor this week (Dec. 4, 2014) by Ermes Culos, I feel compelled to respond to it just to set the record straight. It is not what Mr. Culos says that gets to me but what he doesn’t say and leaves up to the public to make their own conclusions.

First, I was on the landfill advisory committee for five years, of which I was the Chair for three of those years.

What I take exception to is that he lays the blame for all the problems that we have had to try and put the methane gas to use on the operator and council for not working hard enough to do something besides flaring the gas at the landfill.

We, as council, and Belkorp, which is Wastech’s parent company, worked very hard to find a solution to this problem, but as the gas belonged to Metro Vancouver and not the Village, they were in no hurry to invest the money it would take to put the gas to a better use.

There were two ways we could have gone to get the most use out of the gas. One was to scrub it and then liquify it under extreme pressure and then to transport it to a facility that could put it into the system, which could be very costly and dangerous, or we could go the way we did and use it to power the generators.

In order to sell this electricity to Hydro, they had to upgrade their sub station at Ashcroft to be able to accept the increased power load. Hydro seemed to be in no hurry to complete this project so the only alternative was to keep flaring the gas.

He also states that there is a significant amount of the gas escaping to the air. The gas collecting system at this site is as efficient as is technically possible and we are recovering more of the gas than required by law which no other landfill in the Province can boast.

I for one would like Mr. Culos to give credit where credit is due and to give all the facts rather than just the ones that he feels will further his cause.

Darrell Rawcliffe

Cache Creek