Jerome Desilets

I was given a copy of Immanence, set on shutting down the Mill and having a utopia of arts-and-craft vendors only in Powell River. No room for industry or new airports, from what I could gather.

The mill is on a shutdown schedule planned years ago? The mill is using the constant threat of mill closure as a scare tactic to control Powellriverites through fear? They are asking businesses to stand up to corporate bullying and learn to be a community without an operational mill? Simply put, there is no organized boycott.

I am someone who earns mill dollars. Businesses that don’t support how I make a living won’t get my support, and that makes perfect sense to me. A person saying not to support businesses that don’t support how people make a living wage is not controlling by fear but simply stating a fact of life and simple economics.

Those collecting a pension from working in the mill and now protesting the landfill are the biggest hypocrites. They ought not cash another pension cheque ever again. They ought to live off the land and fend for themselves.

Go ahead and garden, but let’s get the town developing. I am in full support of the Wildwood development and let’s see about using boiler sand in the new asphalt runway. Log it! Burn it! Pave it! And get jets landing on it!

A new airport would bring untold opportunities. Make it extra long and wide, big enough for decent-size jets. Maybe even some of our starving artists might make enough to eat. Look at Comox: West Jet came in and now it’s a resort destination. It’s growing by leaps and bounds.

A drag strip could be made on the old airport; I support that. A professional drag strip like Mission –great stuff! Get the funny cars, rail cars and drag bikes going--more money into our town. Take in a ton of taxes and things could get fixed up around here. Maybe some new pavement: some of the roads feel like railway tracks or a mechanical bull ride.

A good part of Westview is built on landfill; we all went to school over landfill; played soccer over landfill.
Flyash is no more hazardous than the cement you’re already walking on. The signs on the hill and highway are more of an eyesore than the landfill will ever be. They serve only to harm investments in our community.

As far as dioxins are concerned, 95% are consumed: the BBQ is the worst offender –cooking fats creates dioxins. Vegetarians do have one thing right: the majority of your food ought to be fruits and veggies. The output from our power boiler is so non-polluting that it is not necessary to report it. If it went into your garden, and you got dirty hands from gardening and then ate a sandwich with those dirty hands, you could get 1% of your daily dioxins. A modern power boiler has no impact on your health concerns.

Some of the businesses supporting the landfill protest have merchandise from Third World factories, with, as we have seen on the news recently, no controls over formaldehyde and other poisons in their products. Where are these materials going to end up once the kids are not playing with them? You guessed it –a landfill.
Let us never forget, Powell River is here because the mill was made here, and is still here. I would like the silent majority who support the mill and town development to get vocal and get to meetings, and any future protests that may happen.