folc.ca's comment on HAZCO's answer to FAQ #24

Note: The background text in the following was copied from the Frequently-asked Questions page at HAZCO's website, Nov. 2, 2005.  HAZCO's answers to "frequently asked questions" deserve further comments.  Those comments are inserted where required in HAZCO's text and are shown on yellow background.

From HAZCO's FAQ web page (quoted verbatim):

FAQ #24. What assurances can you give residents that this technology will actually work, especially on the long term?

A similar facility located near Sundre, Alberta, using the same technology, has been operating for the last 14 years in a similar environment.  To date, the Sundre facility has processed more than 22 million tonnes of sulphur.  To our knowledge, there have been no issues or emergencies with respect to the Sundre, Alberta facility.

Comment: Yes, yes, yes... all of that has already been said by HAZCO and is a repetition of the answer to FAQ #23. Therefore, the comments to HAZCO's response to FAQ #24 are the same as the comments to HAZCO's answer to FAQ #23. As to HAZCO's speculations on emergency responses in relation to the Shantz facility, it is known that a number of people in the vicinity of Shantz had serious accidents by driving into sulphur unit-trains stalled at country-road crossings. Whether or not Shantz caused emergency responses or not is immaterial. In an isolated, sparsely populated area that is of far lesser importance than in a densely populated one.  What is important is that sulphur fires can and do happen (as even HAZCO admits) and that some large ones, two of them in Alberta, were spectacular and massive catastrophes that cause injuries, death, great damage to property and the environment and caused massive evacuations involving at times many thousands of people. (See footnote to SO2 Toxicity Table) The most important aspects in the comparison between the long-running Shantz facility and the one proposed by HAZCO is that Shantz has safety- and environmental features that HAZCO's facility will not have, and that Shantz is being operated by Shell, with many decades of experience in sulphur handling, and HAZCO has obviously no experience at all and so much to learn that even outsiders can provide HAZCO with useful advice to solve problems that HAZCO overlooked and for very long obstinately refused to consider. (Cheech, who but a novice would insist for so long to immerse a sulphur storage-block in groundwater! — see information on problems with sulphur storage)

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Created Nov. 4, 2005