To the editor:
Re: "Odour from Richmond compost company wafting into city," Aug. 15.
Proposed fines for odour-producing companies are a licence for rich companies to pollute with impunity.
West Coast Reduction is an East Vancouver company that takes animal waste and turns it into money and stench. But here's the thing: the money is huge and it goes to West Coast Reduction and its owners the Diamond family while the stench is also huge but it goes to the residents of the surrounding communities.
The stench lowers the quality of life for residents of East Van (and sometimes West Side, too). A fine of $100,000 is, relative to income, in effect only a tiny tax on a super-profitable business. Such a fine would do nothing to give local residents the air quality they deserve.
A better solution? The GVRD should license a new rendering plant in a much less densely populated area, it should stop allowing West Coast Reduction to expand, and rigorously enforce existing air quality regulations.
Sheila Craigie, Vancouver
