Nelson city council and local environmental NGOs appear not to understand the global gravity of polluting our atmosphere. Two major housing/condo developments in Nelson have been encouraged to ignore future consequences of waste management and energy consumption.
These current developers will add a population to Nelson of nearly 1,000 garbage creators and energy consumers, yet there are no plans to deal with the mountains of waste or significantly reduce energy use for these high-end domiciles and commercial real estate units.
Trucking organic waste matter from Nelson to Salmo should have stopped two decades ago. Instead local politicians and paid environmental NGOs have chosen to dig a bigger methane hole in Salmo, apparently willing to add more garbage trucks to our mountain highways.
We do have nice taxpayer sponsored radio advertisements and signage about “zero waste” concepts, along with other green washing NGO events and sponsored rhetoric that is so ubiquitous it is likely newcomers think they are living in a fairly progressive community.
The housing/condo development beside Kootenay Lake’s West Arm could have likely reduced their heating/cooling use by 60 to 70 per cent by pumping (geothermal) from the huge heat/cooling sink that flows passively by their front door. Not a beep of encouragement from financed NGOs or tax breaks from regional or city-elected pundits.
It appears Nelson Hydro’s and city politicians’ recent steam engine proposal that will truck one of Canada’s most treacherous stretches of highway with apparently free wood waste (50 to 60 km) from the last local lumber mill will help with greening our economy.
Nelson’s steam engine wood chip trucking will join huge chip trucks on the Slocan highway that still needlessly suffers. The wood chips should been have barged down the Columbia River/Arrow Lake from Revelstoke to Celgar pulp. Apparently our MLA at the time had to change the status of that narrow road to allow this nonsense. When we will get past professional green washing?
Tom Prior
Nelson