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VIUNITY SINCE 1969

1987 News 985-2131 Chaysified 986-6222

A DEVELOPMENT permit clearing the way for a two- “phase, $45 million Erco Industries sodium chlorate plant expansion is up for consideration by North Vancouver

NV District Council consid

District Council at a special meeting March 2,

North Vancouver District Mayor Marilyn Baker called for a staff report Monday night to investigate the enforceability of limiting plant production to 1986 levels if new cell line technology has not com- pletely replaced the existing, haz- ardous sludge producing graphite cell technology by Dec. 31, 1991.

A handful of residents living near the plant spoke out against the proposed expansion at a public meeting prior to Monday night’s proposal.

“T live pretty close to the plant, and we've had some nights where you couldn't breathe from the

MICHAEL BECKER

News Reporter

smell of it,’ said Marcel Dupuis, a 32-year Maplewood area resident.

James Weber said he was born and raised in Ocean Falls, ‘I’m a resident of the North Shore and planet Earth and I’m sick and tired of people dumping their garbage into the environment.”'

But Erco plant manager Brian Smyth said the plant has been an exemplary corporate citizen for the past 30 years and the expansion and upgrade will make the facility

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YOUNG NORTE Shore News renders are geting a

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NEWS photo Mike Waketleld

BELIEVE IT or not it is stil! winter. These children were spotted on Mount Seymour , recently having the time of their lives sliding down slopes on a trusty. inner ‘tube. Despite the rain in the low-lying areas of the North Shore, snow is still ample at the ski:

resorts,

cleaner and more competitive in the long run. ‘*There’s a need for the chemival industry and there’s a need for jobs — the problem: is that everybody wants the industry somewhere else.”

Baker asked for a report on the plant’s proposed plan for dealing with the heavy-metal laden spent graphite mud currently being pro- duced and stored on site. Council wants the development permit to include a limitation that all on-site storage of the hazardous graphite mud cease at the close of 1991.

But according to Smyth, the company’s legal counsel believes the district cannot limit plant pro- duction.

Although Erco's application has targeted 1991 as the completion date for phase two of the expan-

sion, the company has subsequent- ly asked council for an extension of phase-two completion to 1993.

“We'lldo our best to meet the 1991 deadline, but we'd like a little more flexibility,”’ said Smyth.

Erco, the major suppiier of so- dium chlorate to the pulp and paper industry in the West, pres- ently produces over 50 tonnes of solid waste a year and according to Smyth, is storing 100 to 140 :onnes of the waste in steel tanks ai the plant located in the Maplewood area of the district.

Smyth said the plant expansion will increase maximum annual so- dium chlorate production to 76,000 tonnes, up from the current 54,000 tonnes. The new cell line technology, he said, does not pro- duce the graphite sludge containing

ers controversial chemical plant expansion

IDUSTRIAL DILEMMA

cadmium and chromium.

Smyth adeed that chlorine air emissions are expected to decrease 80 per cent by 1991.

But the upgrade will mean an in- itial 10 per cent increase in cooling system effluent discharged into Burrard Inlet, decreasing to three per cent by 1991. Smyth said the plant presently discharges 6,295 cubic metres of effluent per day into the inlet.

Smyth said scrubbers have minimized chlorine emissions to below five parts per million, but admitted the plant had exceeded emission standards in the past.

Although district staff expressed concerns regarding an increase in off-site shipping of hazardous goods, approval of the $15 million phase one was recommended.

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