"Swan Hills hazardous waste plant a series of mistakes"

Commentary - broadcast on CBC Radio 1 network

by Donna Korchinski

October 24, 2000

JEFF COLLINS: Political opponents were quick to point the finger when Alberta's controversial hazardous waste plant ran into more financial problems. The Swan Hills disposal centre has soaked taxpayers for almost half a billion dollars, and it may be shut down soon. They've announced that Bovar can't keep it going after December 31st. On Commentary this morning, freelance journalist Donna Korchinski chronicles what she calls a series of dumb decisions.

DONNA KORCHINSKI: Nobody likes hazardous waste. It's dangerous. The Alberta government, back in the early 80s had this vision that it would safely get rid of its waste with a state of the art plant in northern Alberta. But it got sidetracked with a series of very bad decisions along the way.

The first bad decision was the original agreement with the operator, Bow Valley Resource Services. Bow Valley was an oilfield service company run by dedicated Tory friends. The provincial government dreamed up a contract with Bow Valley which could only be described as a "sweetheart deal". Bow Valley would receive a guaranteed healthy profit. There were no incentives to be efficient. A disaster for the Alberta taxpayer.

Bad decision number two: In 1989, the Alberta government had a chance to go over the joint venture and change the contract. It chose to stay with the sweetheart deal.

Bad decision number three: in 1991, when Ralph Klein was Minister of Environment, he was talked into approving a senseless expansion of the plant. The arguments made in favour of quadrupling its size were that there was a lot of oilfield waste around. Ironically, the operator at the time knew that within six years, the plant would be too big.

Bad decision number four: just as the plant was being expanded to handle more oilfield waste, and Ralph Klein was taking over as premier, the environment department declared that oilfield waste was not dangerous enough to go to Swan Hills. Thousands of barrels a year of oilfield sludge and other wastes could now be dumped more cheaply in landfills or in deep wells. So where did that leave Swan Hills? Pretty lonely.

And it got lonelier. The province was losing money by the day because of its guarantee of profits to the operator. By 1996, the government was so embarrassed, it decided to cut its losses and hand over its remaining interest to Bow Valley's descendent, Bovar Inc. There was one catch. Bovar could back out of the deal if it wanted.

Well, guess what? Last week, Bovar called in its marker. Why should it continue to lose money if it had an escape clause? After all, the company knows that there are fewer and fewer PCBs and other toxic wastes around. There's more recycling going on and there are fancier and newer ways of treating wastes.

In the end, history has proven that Swan Hills was never a money-making proposition for anyone. And in fact, it never should have been. It's a necessary service, like sewer collection. But now, because of the dumb decisions in the past, Alberta could be left with no hazardous waste facility, and almost a half a billion dollars poorer. Ridiculous.

For commentary, I'm Donna Korchinski in Calgary.

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