Instead of the branches and shattered portions of tree trunks left behind at logging operations being burned, the company told the public, the local town council, the provincial government and others that the material would be trucked to town to make pellets.
But what was promised and what was delivered are two very different things.
Local resident and longtime provincial Environment Ministry employee Len Vanderstar says that the moment the pellet mill opened in 2018, the primary source material used to make the pellets came from tens of thousands of logs taken from the forest, along with wood chips and sawdust generated at the sawmill next door.
‘We were hoodwinked’
Meanwhile, the open-burning of logging slash piles that the company claimed would be utilized as source material continued much as before.
“We were hoodwinked,” Vanderstar says, adding that it wasn’t just members of his community that were misled, but also Smithers town council and provincial government officials who had to make the call on whether to issue the company an amended permit allowing it to build the new facility.
Vanderstar is now calling on his former employer to suspend the pellet mill’s permit and to order the Drax Group, which operates the majority of pellet mills in the province, including in Smithers, to fully disclose exactly how much if any “slash” is being used at the mill.
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