Yet, although the initial designs for HAZCO's proposals provided for long-term, sub-surface storage (and subsequently for storage in above-ground sulphur blocks) of massive quantities of sulphur (many millions of tonnes), more recently HAZCO repeatedly stated that sulphur blocks will not be part of the design of the sulphur storage and handling facility proposed for Lamont County.  The question is how HAZCO would be able to operate its facility in Lamont County without long-term sulphur storage in blocks, while the facility it alleges is the model for its Lamont County proposal cannot do so. 
   During the question-and-answer period at the Municipal Planning Commission's meeting in Lamont, Don Friesen, COE  for HAZCO, was asked whether HAZCO had any intentions of ever operating a sulphur-block at its proposed site.  Don Friesen answered that at this time HAZCO has no such intention. (Emphasis by Don Friesen, as he emphasized "at this time" in a follow-up and clarification of his response to the question.)

That answer is not a commitment by HAZCO to never have a sulphur block at their proposed site.  HAZCO originally had that intention, then removed it from their current application to Alberta Environment.  However, as it is a virtual certainty that the arrival of sulphur cannot be stopped when excess production of sulphur prills cannot be shipped out, the need to incorporate a sulphur block into the logistics of the site design is a virtual certainty as well.
   Once the site is in operation, a sulphur block will certainly follow in the not-too-distant future.

Shell's Shantz facility is located on a quarter section (½ mile by ½ mile) of land. (The area covered in the satellite photo is about ¾ mile by ¾ mile.)

Another sulphur facility, the one at the Pine River Gas Plant in North-Eastern B.C., one that its owner, Westcoast Energy, reports is fashioned after the Shantz model, does make use of a sulphur block, for good reasons.  If anything happens to stop the flow of sulphur from the Pine River Gas Plant to Westcoast's sulphur pelletizing facility about 3 miles away, without its sulphur block taking up the slack in the process of sulphur disposal, the Pine River Gas Plant would have to shut down, just as surely as a body would whose rectum refuses to pass anything anymore would shut down, unless an alternative route for waste disposal is created.

The purpose of the rectum is to facilitate the elimination of waste from the body.  In the Annual Report 2003, Canadian Oil Sands Trust,  (p. 73) the sulphur produced by Syncrude and handed over for an annual disposal fee to Marsulex Inc. for forming into pellets or prills is called "the waste stream from the Flue Gas Desulphurization Unit" (my emphasis --ed.). 
   As of now, more than two years after its construction was completed, the Marsulex Inc. sulphur forming facility in Fort McMurray has not yet shipped a single train-load of formed sulphur.  Shipping formed sulphur from Fort McMurray is a losing proposition. Fort McMurray is simply too far removed from the Vancouver harbour.
   The discharge end of any desulphurization unit is the equivalent of a rectum.  Sulphur is eliminated waste.  Lamont County residents, as established through the rejection of the application a few years ago for the Edmonton Municipal waste disposal site (that was later eagerly accepted by the Enoch Reserve, west of Edmonton), do not wish to have their county become the dumping ground for any other municipality's waste.  None of the sulphur intended to be dumped in Lamont County is produced in Lamont County. 

The Pine River Gas Plant experienced a good number of incidents that halted the elimination of sulphur, amongst them ten fires in the interval from Dec. 14, 1996 to Mar. 14, 2001, of whom eight happened in the year 2000, most of those in September of that year.  That series of incidents caused the National Energy Board to become involved and to hold a hearing.  At that hearing it was determined that a number of concerns needed to be addressed before Westcoast Energy would receive permission to keep operating its pipeline.  That was due to the National Energy Board's concern for the safety of the residents in the sparsely settled vicinity of the gas plant. 

The sulphur fire that happened September 9, 2000 at the Pine River Gas Plant, destroyed a pipeline building.  It burned an estimated 107 kg of sulphur, creating sulphur dioxide in quantities and concentrations that affected a few people, causing them to require medical attention.  A young child needed to have oxygen administered.  The vegetation downwind from that fire was severely damaged up to a distance of 30 m, with the severity of the damage to the vegetation gradually decreasing to minor levels 300 m away. (A somewhat larger fire in 1984 at the Shell Ram River gas plant's sulphur block caused 22 ha of forest to become totally destroyed through SO₂ emissions produced by that fire.)

   From the perspective of Westcoast Energy, as they stated to the National Energy Board, considering that the sulphur pipeline had been used to transport millions of tonnes of sulphur, the few kilograms of spilled and burned sulphur represent a trivial concern and a testament to how well and secure their pipeline operations is. 
   In the eyes of the National Energy Board, Westcoast Energy was ill prepared for safe operation of its sulphur pipeline, i.e. the fact that Westcoast's emergency response plan was very poorly executed, with no warnings to residents in the vicinity, no fire-fighting equipment at locations where the fires happened (the workers who fought the September 9, 2000 fire had to use buckets to get water from a nearby creek), and with emergency response personnel from the gas plant arriving after the fires had been put out.

   From the perspective of the people affected by them, the fires were life-threatening events that instilled in them the justified fear that the Pine River sulphur operations are a serious and permanent threat to their security and lives.  All the more so because about a year after the fact Westcoast Energy had not lived up to the promise to deliver a better training program for more effective emergency responses.

It appears that money counts, and people's justified fears don't.  As of now, that is also the appearance that the elected representatives in the County of Lamont create in the minds of their constituents.

Next page: Block storage, processing and loading of sulphur at Shell's Shantz Sulphur Facility