| Index to Issues Introduction
This page provides leads to information that relate to HAZCO's
proposed sulphur-storage and -handling facility to be located in Lamont
County, less than 2 miles east of Bruderheim.
Before you go into the serious details regarding the HAZCO proposal for the County of Lamont, here is a bit of what could well be gallows-humour that relates to things that could come and to people that don't do their best to do our county good:
"This house," said the real estate agent, "has its good points and its bad points. To show you I'm honest, I'll tell you about both.
The disadvantages are caused by the sulphur processing and storage facility that was built just a couple of miles down the road from here.
The sulphur facility produces some noise when railroad cars are being loaded and shunted. The noise is fairly loud, constant throughout each week, and it carries a long way at night or on calm days.
However, when you hear that noise, you'll know that you're still alive.
Moreover, by the presence or absence of the rotten-egg smell produced by the sulphur site you will always be able to tell which way the wind is blowing."
And here is another one for after the fact:
At the county information session, the county manager said, "I know that things didn't turn out quite as well as I always thought they would with respect to the sulphur site, but don't blame me for what happened. I did nothing more than follow the rules.
I should perhaps have been more aggressive in opposing the proposal for the sulphur site, but now that we have the site in our county, we've got to live with it.
Besides, what can you do to me, take me apart?" Upon which a voice came from the back, "Yeah, let's do that. I'll have his gall."
Index for the pages relating to the HAZCO proposal for a sulphur storage and handling site in Lamont County
An announcement was made April 21, 2006 by Alberta Environment of
the decision by Alberta Environment in the matter of HAZCO's
application to Alberta Environment for permission to construct and
operate a sulphur facility 2.2 km east of Bruderheim and 6 km
north-west of Lamont. (Details)
- Letter by The Friends of Lamont County to the residents in the County (page 1,
page 2), dated Dec. 16, 2005, inviting residents to write to the Director - Northern Region, Alberta Environment to make their objections heard and have them considered (providing also a form letter to the Director,
page 1,
page 2, a form letter that includes a check list of concerns as well as space for expressing special concerns by individual writers). Please make sure that you print out and fill in a copy of one of those letters, and send your copy to the Director - Northern Region, Alberta Environment.
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Sulphur Poisoning
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Sulphur blocks
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Report on HAZCO's open house and public discussion forum in the Lamont Recreation Centre, Nov. 17, 2005
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Comments to HAZCO's answers to frequently-asked questions about the proposed HAZCO sulphur storage site in Lamont County —
Introduction;
Index to FAQs
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Text of the July Flyer
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Failed attempts to establish Hazco sulphur storage sites
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Hazco operates in B.C., too
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Sulphur storage poses problems and environmental hazards
References
Index to some web pages covering related issues (additions will be made as new sources of information are being discovered)
Not even a prototype of an electricity generating plant burning sulphur exists. The idea of
using sulphur for generating electricity is only a scheme as of now. Yet, if the industry were to be developed, Dr. Peter Clark (professor in the Chemistry Department at the University of Calgary and the Director of Alberta Sulphur Research Ltd.) feels that "We’re in the position at the moment where we can sell perhaps six million tonnes of the eight million tonnes that we produce each year but year by year we sell less and less but we do calculate that we have the type of reservoirs that we need which could, in fact, get rid of all of the sulphur produced in Alberta."
The article at the preceding link also quotes Dr Clark as stating that one single oil-sands plant will produce enough sulphur in the next hundred years to cover about fifteen square kilometers of land area, "We envisage over the next hundred years perhaps another ten of these plants and so you can see that the problem will quickly magnify out of all proportion so we really do need to consider some alternate technologies to deal with sulphur from the oilsands developments."
Dr. Clark is right. Recent construction starts for new oil-sands crude-oil upgraders in the Fort Saskatchewan area prove him to be right.
- Evacuations of residents in cases of disasters caused by sulphur handling or by sulphur fires
As of 2005 07 24, a search of the Internet for
Sulfur OR Sulphur AND Residents AND evacuated produced a search-return-list with 26,600 entries containing links to stories and articles covering incidents during which residents had to be evacuated.
When the search string was modified to include the term "fire", the search-return-list still contained
23,000 entries.
Do the residents of Lamont County wish to make the news on account of having to be evacuated when an accident happens in connection with the handling, storing or processing of sulphur at the proposed Hazco sulphur storage facility?
A tabulation of just a few of those tens of thousands of incidents that can be found through the indicated Internet searches.
Dust from waste-sulphur stockpiles at Tengiz oil and gas field
(at NE shore of Caspian Sea, Kazkhstan, owned by Chevron and
ExxonMobil) caused "about 3,000 people [] having to be moved 50
miles away because of pollution - and they blame sulphur dust
for their illnesses." (Source:
Byproduct that blights Caspian life, by Paul Brown,
Wednesday December 4, 2002, The Guardian; off-site)
See
more results (about 40) from an Internet search for
articles related to the waste-sulphur problems at the Tengis
field
See
more results (about 350) from an Internet Search for
articles related to waste-sulphur problems in Kazakhstan.
- Ottawa on the hook for clean-up of vacant land
2005 10 26
Kathy Tomlinson, CTV News
It's a prime piece of waterfront land in the heart of Vancouver --
which would be worth millions if it weren't contaminated with
sulphur and toxic metals. Instead, the land is vacant, and Ottawa is
on the hook for the clean up. It's a little-known deal 30 years in
the making, which, in the end, could cost Canadian taxpayers as much
as up to $1 billion for the lease payments, legal costs and clean
up. (Full
Story — Off-site)
See also
VANCOUVER REAL ESTATE A TOXIC NIGHTMARE; SITE HAS SPARKED A
LEGAL BATTLE
OVER WHO SHOULD PAY TO CLEAN UP THE MESS
Consider that, according to
the estimate by Dr. Clarke of the University of Calgary, Alberta will require a total land area of 150 square kilometers for sulphur storage during the next 100 years. If we permit the Hazco sulphur storage site to be constructed right next to Bruderheim, it will obviously not take very long to use up the space desired for that. More sites will be required in short order. Alberta has better locations that can be used for sulphur storage: in isolated areas; not adjacent to the homes of people and to sensitive industrial plants, and not locations comprised of prime farmland that are choice locations for far more lucrative and less potentially harmful industrial installations.
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