u/ExcitementImpossible

A month ago, Environment Minister Grant Hunter said Alberta Environment would work with the City of Calgary to investigate whether materials that were not permitted under ECCO’s environmental approvals were present at the landfill.

The province has now released the laboratory results from the air samples taken around the fire. Those results showed some significant concentrations directly at the fire, including benzene at roughly 24 times Alberta’s one-hour ambient objective, acrolein at about 10 times the objective, hydrogen sulphide at about 3 times, and styrene at about twice the objective.

What I still cannot find is an answer to a separate question:

What was actually burning?
Did Alberta Environment take physical samples of the landfill waste, debris or ash?

Did they determine whether any prohibited materials were present?

If samples were taken, where are the laboratory results?

If the investigation is still ongoing, what is its status?
I emailed Environment Minister Grant Hunter, Alberta Environmental Investigations, Councillor Rob Ward’s office and Mayor Farkas’s office today asking for a clear answer.

I’m not suggesting the air-sampling results haven’t been released. They have. I’m specifically trying to find the results of the promised investigation into the actual contents of the landfill.

If anyone has seen a report or government update addressing this specifically, please post it here.

I live in southeast Calgary and I have three small kids. For days, we have been dealing with smoke from the ECCO Recycling landfill fire, and I am increasingly frustrated that residents are being told air monitoring is happening without being given easy access to the actual results.

I am not trying to create panic or claim the air is dangerous without evidence. I want the evidence.

I want to know what my kids are breathing. I want to know what pollutants are being detected, at what concentrations, where the samples are being taken, and what the laboratory analysis of the smoke actually shows.

That is why I have started escalating this beyond Facebook comments. I have contacted my MLA and I am now reaching out to the Minister of Environment, the Premier’s office, the City, public health officials and other agencies.

I think residents deserve more than statements saying hourly averages were below an air-quality objective. If government agencies are collecting detailed measurements, those measurements should be made public.

This is what I’ve written:

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If anyone else wants to ask the same questions, these are some of the contacts I’m reaching out to:

• Premier Danielle Smith: premier@gov.ab.ca
• Minister of Environment and Protected Areas: EPA.Minister@gov.ab.ca
• Minister of Primary and Preventative Health Services: PPHS.Minister@gov.ab.ca
• Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Services: PSES.Minister@gov.ab.ca
• Calgary-Peigan MLA Tanya Fir: Calgary.Peigan@assembly.ab.ca
• Mayor’s Office: themayor@calgary.ca
• Ward 11: ward11@calgary.ca
• AHS Environmental Public Health: SafeHealthyEnvironments@ahs.ca
• Environment and Climate Change Canada: enviroinfo@ec.gc.ca

Alberta’s 24-hour Energy and Environmental Response Line is also 1-800-222-6514.

If anyone receives actual monitoring data, laboratory results, sampling locations or a substantive response, please share it. I think a lot of people in southeast Calgary would like to know exactly what we’ve been breathing.