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District 1
(June 2008) Trouble at the twin tunnels Up the (Cache) Creek without a paddle  Trouble at the twin tunnelsBy Craig McIntosh, Member Representative The tunnel boring machines (TBMs) on the Bilfinger Berger twin tunnels project in North Vancouver were shut down on Jan. 8 for safety reasons due to poor rock conditions. Rock was bursting loose as the TBMs cut their way through. Both machines are stopped at the 4-km mark of the 7.2-km project. WorkSafeBC has a stop order on the project until a safe method to proceed can be found. At a recent union-management meeting, the company said it has sent a report to the Metro Vancouver Board (formerly GVRD) with a plan to restart production and it is waiting for a response. In the meantime, 40 workers have been laid off and 80 are continuing to work. The company said more layoffs are coming if a decision is not made soon on how to proceed. Options include: • adding shelters to protect the workers on the TBMs (leading to completion of the tunnels in six months) • replacing the TBMs with machines used on the Canada Line that put in a precast concrete liner as the machine proceeds (completion in one year) • pulling out the TBMs and doing the work by drilling and blasting (completion in three years) Any way you look at it, the Metro Board will have to recoup a lot of money from the taxpayers. Major Project Inventory The B.C. Ministry of Economic Development’s major projects inventory continues to grow. The value of projects in planning or under construction at the end of 2007 was a record $148 billion. This is good news for everyone in the B.C. Building Trades. We are starting to see a shift in focus from residential and condo construction to catching up on much needed work on infrastructure projects. The current scale of activity in the industry is expected to continue into 2011. Have a safe summer.  Up the (Cache) Creek without a paddleBy Don Swerdan, Member Representative The As you’re probably all aware, the GVRD (Metro Vancouver) has decided that the answer to the Lower Mainland’s solid waste problem is to ship it to Washington State. These bureaucrats have concluded that of the 25 or more proposals received on the processing of the Lower Mainland’s solid waste, the only answer was to ship this material out of the country. The last time I looked at a map we were located in British Columbia, not in Ontario where the trucking of waste across the border is a huge business. The opposition to this proposal and the closure of the Cache Creek landfill includes the Mayor of Cache Creek, the Tribal Council of the area, the residents, Wastech employees, the IUOE and the Teamsters. I recently read that the Mayor of White Rock is vehemently opposed to having boxcar after boxcar of solid waste rolling through her municipality on its way down to Washington State. There’s just something horribly wrong with the idea that we send our waste to another country because our bureaucrats can’t deal with the problem. Whatever happened to a made in B.C. solution? Contrary to the beliefs of many, the Cache Creek landfill is not just a hole in the ground where we “hide” the waste we generate. Clay liners, recirculation pumps and constant gas monitoring ensure that this site is not only compliant with all the laws of the land but serves as a model of modern landfill management. Where I come from, if it ain’t broke we don’t fix it - an adage that the G. V. R.D. seems unaware of. According to the bureaucrats the Washington solution is only a temporary one while we, the taxpayer, await the building of new incinerators. No one seems to know how many incinerators there will be, or where they are to be located. Can’t you just hear the NIMBY (not in my backyard) protests - and quite honestly who could blame them? The last estimate I saw for an incinerator that could handle half of the Lower Mainland’s current waste was in the range of $300 million in today’s dollars. The naysayers of the Cache Creek landfill extension state that one of the reasons for the eventual closure of Cache Creek is the airshed quality. They further state that the truck traffic transporting the solid waste to Cache Creek is directly responsible for contributing to a decline in air quality. Upon review of the BCTA web site it becomes very clear that according to the 2007 EPA regulations (which closely correspond to Canadian standards), the nitrous oxide emissions from trucks will be negligible. And what do you think would be coming out of multiple stacks on the proposed waste-to-energy facilities? The government would have us believe that by adopting such a proposal that the province would be looking at a “green” solution. Again, by just cruising the net I found a web site that reported the findings of a consulting firm’s investigation into the air and waste quality of the West Coast of the U.S. At this 2004 conference there was a presentation from the consulting firm that described the emissions coming from cruise ships “hoteling” while docked in Vancouver. The term “hoteling” refers to a cruise ship running its engines for power generation and services on a ship while docked in the harbor. Hold onto your hats. One cruise ship “hoteling” produces emissions equivalent to 12,400 vehicles. Multiply that by the 270 plus cruise ships that will be visiting our harbour this year and suddenly a couple of trucks going to Cache Creek daily seems relatively insignificant. The numbers referenced do not include any other ship traffic. I haven’t heard anyone complain about the cruise ships, I guess because it’s important economically to a lot of people. I would suggest that the same argument would apply to those people who are adversely affected by the closure of the Cache Creek landfill. If you get a chance to attend a G. V. R.D. meeting dealing with the public’s view on solid waste management I would strongly suggest you attend and make your views known. |
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