Letter: Terminal present danger to the air

The next EFSEC hearing will be about air pollution permits.

For two years, Don Orange has been saying that, given a choice, people won’t want to live or shop around a smelly oil terminal.

Our colleagues on Hayden Island complain repeatedly about the horrendous odors from a nearby oil-recycling refinery. They discovered that the pollution abatement equipment had been removed in 2005 and the agencies are still “working with” the polluter.

A colleague who has retired from an air quality agency tells me that it is openly discussed among staff that they have a vested interest in permitting projects because their budget depends somewhat on the number of projects they approve and monitor.

The agencies tend to assume that the pollution abatement equipment will work all the time and can be very patient when it doesn’t.

At a crude-by-rail terminal in New Brunswick, the equipment had mechanical issues within months of startup. The problems increased in 2012, particularly during winter months. In the first three months of 2015, the unit was offline 78 percent of the time, compared with 38 percent in 2014 and 25 percent in 2013.

We need port commissioners who will be diligent.