Raising a big stink

By Dan Hilborn
Published Dec. 17, 2003


When Troy Tack bought the home tucked up against the woods near Confederation Park, he believed it was his family's dream house come true.

The husband and father of two young children knew he could do no better than living next door to one of the largest parks in the city of Burnaby, with nearby schools and a teeming forest directly across the street.

But just a few weeks after moving into the secluded Capitol Hill neighbourhood, Tack and his wife began to notice the smells - not just in the air outside the house, but actually rising up from somewhere underneath the foundations of their home.

Tack says the odour is not the occasional whiff of the refinery that is well known to most of his neighbours in the Heights. What he and his family have to endure is an all-pervasive reek of raw gas, mixed with human sewage.

"It's coming up the sewer line and it's so overpowering we have to keep the downstairs bathroom door closed," he told the Burnaby NOW. "It stinks. Anyone who comes over to our house gets halfway down the walkway and asks if we have a gas leak."

Since moving into the home in August, Tack has had officials from the refinery, the City of Burnaby engineering department and the local health authority come out to investigate his complaints.

Despite assurance from local health authorities that the smell poses no health risk, Tack is worried that the gaseous smells inside his house could be affecting his two small children, aged six months and two-and-a-half years old.

"What has happened here is that our house is on the last street on Capitol Hill," he says. "All the fumes in the neighbourhood go to the lowest point, and that's us."

His greatest aggravation comes from the fact that he can't convince the authorities to offer him the same stopgap measure that he claims has successfully worked on several of his neighbour's homes - installing a 'pee trap' or gas trap device where the city sewer lines connects to his home.

Chevron has declined to install the pee trap because it believes a better, more long-term solution will soon be found. Similar comments were made by officials at Burnaby city hall.

"The source of the odour problem is from the Chevron refinery," said Lambert Chu, the deputy director of engineering for Burnaby. "They discharge treated waste water into the sewer on Penzance and we found a strong odour emitting from that water."

When asked why city hall would not install a pee trap at Tack's home, Chu said: "A pee trap may not eliminate the odour problem. It may very well work for his particular property, but if the odour migrated through the system, there would be escape from other areas.

"So, if we deal with this one, and there is still an odour escape, then those escaped gases would still congregate at the low point, which would continue to effect this resident."

Chu said city engineers, GVRD staff and Chevron are currently working on the problem and hope to have a workable solution for the entire neighbourhood early in the new year.

"We're not looking at six months down the road," he said. "Chevron realizes the impact this has so they'll do their best to make it as quick as possible."

While all sides agree the the smells are awful, tests conducted last month on the air quality inside Tack's home found no measurable health risk.

Simrita Johal, a communications consultant for the FHA, confirmed that testing for ammonia, hydrogen sulphide (H2S) and gas vapours inside the home all resulted in readings of zero parts per million (ppm).

According to the Canadian occupational health and safety standards, ammonia begins to pose a health risk when it reaches 35 ppm, hydrogen sulphide is a risk at 15 ppm and gas vapours are a health risk at 500 ppm.

"I think it's fair to say that there's no health risk with the smell, bit there is a smell and it's probably a bit of a nuisance for the residents," Johal said.