CP Rail has met with a Kamloops city councillor and says it is confident it can mitigate concerns about coal dust.
Dale Bass tells NL News that CP’s director of government affairs, Mike Lovecchio, met with her nearly two weeks ago, on Oct. 23.
“I had done a lot of media, as had Michael Mehta, a scientist from TRU. And I think we got Mike’s attention. I know we got CP’s attention, because, bang, he wanted to have a chat.”
She says CP did a pilot project to see which trains had coal dust flying off of them, and why.
“They were able to look back at some sort of measurements they had been making along the route. And they knew exactly what has caused it, and now they know what they have to do to mitigate that potential, should they continue on with that sealant… Whether or not they continue with this new process or they find another process is up to CN and CP. But he was quite confident that they had identified” Bass says.
“(Lovecchio) had seen the videos; he’s quite disturbed for the residents who had been putting up with this dust that had been falling on their properties as well.
“So he also, again, encouraged me to tell them to call if they see it again. Because they will immediately look into whatever diagnostics they have to determine if it’s still happening.”
Bass and others have raised concerns about coal dust, as CP prepares to widen its tracks to accommodate more shipments of coal coming from Teck coal mines in the Elk Valley, starting next spring.
CN Rail has signed a contract with Teck to haul coal from the Elk Valley to Teck’s Neptune Terminal in North Vancouver, and will be sharing a track with CP from the Kootenays before crossing over to its own track in Kamloops.