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Letter: Unpolluted air a vital, natural resource

Water cooling towers at Atlanta Power preferred Equity Ltd. will produce numerous airborne contaminants.

Editor:

Water cooling towers at Atlanta Power preferred Equity Ltd., 4455 Mackenzie Ave. North, Williams Lake B.C. will produce numerous airborne contaminants when creosote treated railway ties are burned at the plant.

Some of these chemicals produced include chlorophenols, chlorobenzenes, dioxins (a colourless liquid ether) with a faint pleasant odour, furans, chloropicrin (an odourless liquid used as an insecticide and as a chemical agent in warfare), benzenes (colourless volatile inflammable liquid), benzine (used in cleaning), benzoic acid, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), lead, magnesium, zinc, chromium, cobalt, nickel, copper, sulphate, nitrite, hydrogen carbonate sulphate, tellurium, thallium, selenium, cadmium, just to name a few that are listed in the Ministry of Environment Permit 8808 draft on the proposal issued June 22, 2016.

The authorized discharge period is continuous.

The authorized works are three cooling towers.

The liquid effluent produced by the plant runs off into the municipal storm water collection system.

Unpolluted air is a vital natural resource.

We have to have it to survive, like clean water, and agricultural land to grow food.

We are all stewards of the land, air, water resources.

It is our human right to breath clean, unpolluted air, eat unpolluted food, fish, meat, wheat, and to drink pure water.

The concerned citizens of Williams Lake and area would like Atlantic Power and the provincial government Ministry of Environment to take us seriously in our plea for unpolluted air quality in a 10-plus kilometre radius of the plant’s stacks.

Chris Hornby

Williams Lake