biodiesel in Hamilton?

[timouse]

i'm all for biodiesel, and particularly now in the age of prions, the idea that they have found a beneficial re-use for slaughterhouse waste is very cool.

it looks like there's something suspect going on though...any of you hammertown folks know anything about this?

Waste firm raises 'red flags'

Company operating without a permit while applying to build a refinery in

city

By Eric McGuinness

The Hamilton Spectator

(Mar 14, 2006)

A Montreal-based company applying to build a biodiesel fuel refinery on

Parkdale Avenue North has been operating a Hamilton transfer station for

animal parts, bones and used cooking oil for years without Environment

Ministry approval.

ABP Recycling, a subsidiary of Sanimal Inc., was also recently caught

dumping untreated wastewater from a related Elmira company into sewers at

its Hamilton plant without permission from either the ministry or the city.

Ministry spokesperson Mark Rabbior said Friday the ministry discovered the

lack of a permit March 3. It happened when an officer investigated a Feb. 15

complaint from the City of Hamilton that ABP was illegally accepting hauled

sewage at 800 Parkdale Ave. N., where it moved early last year.

Spokesperson John Steele further revealed yesterday that there is no record

of a certificate of approval ever being issued for ABP's previous site on

Strathearne Avenue North. He also said the Parkdale plant was accepting two

or three truckloads a day from holding tanks at The Grease Man in Elmira.

Hamilton East MPP Andrea Horwath, Ward 4 Councillor Sam Merulla and

Environment Hamilton are all upset by those disclosures.

Horwath asked: "Why are we faced with an application from people who have

already proven they are not prepared to follow the law? It's extremely

disconcerting that a company can operate in this fashion right under the

nose of everyone."

Brenda Johnson, project co-ordinator for Environment Hamilton, said she

hadn't seen ABP's application to produce 75 million litres of biodiesel a

year beside the transfer station, but "they still need a certificate of

approval for their present plant and don't have one. That's my biggest

concern."

Rabbior said ABP was ordered to stop taking sewage and to apply to legalize

its existing operation in a former Stelco building more recently owned by

Philip Services Corp.

General manager Joe Kosalle spoke about the biodiesel application Friday,

but did not return Spectator calls after the ministry revealed ABP's lack of

permits.

ABP is wholly owned by Sanimal Inc. of Montreal, the largest animal

rendering company in eastern Canada. Sanimal last year acquired a Wisconsin

renderer, Anamax, which is building a 75-million-litre-a-day biodiesel plant

on which the Hamilton application is modelled. The combined company calls

itself Sanimax and has headquarters in Montreal.

Merulla said he would ask city officials to check the biodiesel plan closely

so council can take any concerns to the ministry.

Asked about ABP's lack of a permit, he said: "I'm not sure how it went under

the radar. It's really putting up a lot of red flags for me. I'm not sure we

as a city should be welcoming people like this to do business in the city,

and it's incumbent on the province that every decision it makes is in the

best interests of this community."

Burke Austin of Community Action Parkdale East (CAPE) said flyers would go

out this week urging area residents to tell the ministry "we will not accept

this type of operation in our community."

ABP's biodiesel refinery would be the second in Hamilton. Biox Corp. of

Oakville, which built the first at Oliver and Wentworth streets, says

production will start soon. Its capacity is 60 million litres a year.

Canada's only operating biodiesel facility, built by the Rothsay rendering

division of Maple Leaf Foods, opened last year on Montreal's south shore.

Clean-burning biodiesel can be made from animal fats, vegetable oils and

used cooking grease. It is usually blended with petroleum diesel at

concentrations ranging from 2 per cent to 20 per cent.

The market is growing so fast that an industry website lists 44 plants

planned or under construction in the United States.

March 29 is the deadline for public comment on ABP's application for a

certificate of approval for air emissions from the proposed biodiesel plant.

For more information, call the ministry's Hamilton district office at

905-521-7640. The reference number is 3141-6LZT6R.

[Lazlo]

They're dumping at 800 Parkdale North? I'm surprised anybody noticed.

[Alexis]

i work for an environmental consultant and i work on various companies within the automotive industry CofA's (certificate of approval) every single day. i was amazed that with all the government regulations and such that a company can actually make changes to, or open a plant without a CofA.

i've seen companies run for months with changes that dramatically increase/decrease their exhaust output without the ministry knowing. and it's not that they don't know, it's that it takes a very long time to complete and submit these reports, and once submitted it can take months for approval. what's a company supposed to do? shut down their entire production line for 6 months because they had to change the diameter, or height of a smoke stack? or add a new one in to properly ventilate the interior? in fact, we made an application for an amendment to the existing CofA for one company in june 2004, and it still hasn't been approved, and we just submitted another one that made changes to the changes that hadn't been approved yet. and THAT report took 6 months to build.

these are huge reports with lengthy waiting times for approval. it's really frustrating to see the scare tactics put into place in that piece. hamilton is an industrial city that's had so many shut downs. we need new industry. humans need new fuel. i really hope that this goes through because i personally think it would be great.

[Lazlo]

Last I heard Maple Leaf was pulling out of Hamilton and expanding their plant in Burlington to accommodate the bio-diesel. Hamilton smells bad enough on a good day, the last thing we need is an industry dedicated to turning lips and assholes into fuel, blanketing the city in a stench worse than that of my crotch.

[Alexis]

there are limits as to what you can exhaust into the outside atmosphere, and that includes odour.

and i'm pretty sure maple leaf killed their hamilton expansion a few months ago because of zoning issues, or roads or something like that.

[Lazlo]

They wanted to put the fuckin' thing in the middle of the Meadowlands. I know if I just spent over 300,000 on a brand new house I wouldn't want it near me. Unless of course there was a possibility of found meat.

[payce-ley]

the city sold a permit to the company without getting approval from the neighbours now all the neighbours want to get bought out of their properties because they can't open their windows in the summer or sit on their porches

my dreams of Hamilton turning into the Seattle of Canada just don't seem to be coming around

[Calamity Jane]

there are limits as to what you can exhaust into the outside atmosphere, and that includes odour.

so, who's writing the report up on Lazlo? And, more crucially, who could ever be paid enough to enforce it?

[Lazlo]

so, who's writing the report up on Lazlo? And, more crucially, who could ever be paid enough to enforce it?

Your momma could.

[Calamity Jane]

shows what you know! I'm [color:brown]demon spawn...I aint got no momma!

[timouse]

shows what you know! I'm [color:brown]demon spawn...I aint got no momma!

so your birthday is...spawn-day?