Approval of a solid-waste management plan for Metro Vancouver Monday has raised the hackles of the Fraser Valley Regional District.
The B.C. government gave the green light to the plan Monday.
But the Fraser Valley district is infuriated at the inclusion of a possible incinerator.
"We're extremely disappointed," said Patricia Ross, FVRD chairwoman. "There are absolutely no conditions under which . . . incineration of garbage will be acceptable in this airshed to us."
Ross's comments followed the approval of Metro Vancouver's plans announced Monday by Environment Minister Terry Lake.
Lake approved metro's solid-waste management plan, adding a series of conditions to ensure protection of the environment.
But if metro decides to build a new incinerator - which would generate energy - to handle the solid waste that can't be recycled, it must try to convince the Fraser Valley district of its merits.
If the two regional districts can't agree on safeguards for their common airshed's air quality, the issue will go to arbitration.
The plan also leaves open the possibility of moving solid waste outside the region altogether.
Delta Mayor and metro chairwoman Lois Jackson said metro hopes to recycle or divert 80 per cent of its garbage by 2020, up from the current level of 55 per cent.
"But even with high diversion rates, we will need to deal with the more than one million tonnes of waste that we cannot recycle," said Jackson.
"The new plan does that by focusing on the recovery of materials and energy from the garbage that remains."
But Ross told The Province newspaper that "there are no technologies out there that can give us any kind of confidence - especially when you consider the fact that, of all the pollutants out there, they actually only have to measure and report a handful of the pollutants that are emitted . . . All the technologies are some form of combustion."
Ross said she's in favour of stricter laws banning packaging and increasing recycling so that there is only a minuscule amount of solid waste left to be buried in landfills.
Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie said the cost of building a solid-waste solution is about $450 million but that no funding mechanism had yet been determined.
Wilderness Committee spokesman Ben West predicted any incinerator location would be a tough sell.
"The real fight will begin when they pick a location and try to build one of these pollution-spewing, garbageburning monsters," said West.
