The town of Lewisporte says it’s heard the concerns of its residents and it will not approve the location of a proposed Biomedical Waster Facility in the town’s industrial park.
Paul Dalley Holdings is proposing to incinerate about 450 to 500 tonnes of biomedical waste from NL Health Services annually from a property in the town’s industrial park.
While the project got the greenlight to create an environmental impact statement, Mayor Krista Freake says their concern is its location.
“It’s what we call our industrial park, but it’s certainly not isolated from the community,” says Freake, “fairly close to that location would be additional businesses, food establishments and some residential area,” where the greatest concern lies, says Freake.
Lewisporte Mayor Krista Freake
Freake says the Lewisporte Town Council supports local business development, but the current location is not appropriate. She understands that biomedical waste is something that has to be dealt with, but residents would prefer it to happen in an area that is further away from such a busy area of town.
Meanwhile, Paul Dalley says the proposed location has met with some opposition from local residents, which he says is a moot point because he doesn’t even have the contract yet.
He chose the industrial park because there was a building already there suitable for the incineration of biomedical waste from NL Health Services.
He says locally-produced biomedical waste is currently being trucked off the island for incineration under a contract that’s expired, but extended for the time being.
He says the RFP from NLHS asks for an on-island solution, “so, in asking for that, they know we’ve got to do incineration here, and what I proposed is the world’s most capable technology of handling that biomedical waste here on the island. Now, where we do it, can certainly be up for discussion, and review, and that’s fine…but we need to incinerate certain streams of (biomedical waste) and I’d like to do it here as the only local proponent.”
