On May 27, 2026 at a forum in Kitimat called “What Are the Health Harms of Flaring from LNG?” Kitimat resident and registered nurse Ankur Patel told the audience, “An experiment[is] being done in our community and in ways that we have never seen before. This industry is developed in a way that's quite new, it’s novel… We're learning as we're doing it. So, the community is left with question, how is this impacting my family? How is this impacting my friends. How is this impacting my fellow residents? It's really important.”

A few days later, on June 1, Patel appeared before the District of Kitimat Council asking that Kitimat join other communities, Dawson Creek, Hazelton and Terrace asking for a comprehensive independent cumulative health impact assessment across the entire chain of liquefied natural gas development from the fracking at the Montney Formation near Dawson Creek, along the route of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline to the LNG Canada facility here in Kitimat.

Four members of the District of Kitimat Council who did not attend the actual forum at Mt. Elizabeth Theatre, and listen to the presentations Mayor Phil Germuth and Councillors Edwin Empinado, Graham Pitzel and Mario Feldhoff voted against joining the other municipalities asking for a study that could provide information on current and future health hazards in the Kitimat valley. Councillors Gerry Leibel and Michelle Martins, who chairs the Kitimat Airshed Group voted in favour of the motion. Councillor Terry Marleau was absent.

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At the council meeting Pitzel remarked "The presentation that was put on a couple of days ago, the name of it was, 'What Are the Health Harms of Flaring from LNG?' That is not an unbiased question."

The health harms of liquefied natural gas flaring which have been documented around the world, something which Pitizel seems to either be unaware of or chose to ignore.

The forum, in fact, was an attempt to answer the question about the health risks. A comprehensive study carried out by the province of British Columbia, where the two main political parties are in favour of LNG development, would give both the province and municipalities the information and data necessary to safeguard residents from harmful emissions and show where there are solutions.

As reported here earlier, the World Bank,  hardly a biased environmental organization, has been so concerned about the effects of flaring that it has a conducted a world wide program of satellite monitoring of flaring since 2012 and urged companies and countries involved to reduce flaring saying its 2025 report Our Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report which provides policymakers, industry leaders, and civil society with an in-depth analysis of global gas flaring trends.

Global-Gas-Flaring-Tracker-Report-July-2025

The  World Bank report not only highlights where there are opportunities to conserve and use associated gas to reduce the waste of a natural resource, and enhance energy access and security, but also examines the readily available solutions that need to be implemented globally and the barriers to their adoption. (attached). The World Bank program is part of a Zero Routine Flaring 2030 initiative created at the Paris climate conference to eliminate unnecessary flaring,

Even the World Bank studies are limited. A study in 2024 showed that “enclosed combustion” on more modern flares designed to cut methane emissions actually hide those emissions including methane, carbon dioxide and other pollutants from satellites and other monitoring systems.

The potential health and environmental problems resulting from flaring have been reported in the scientific literature and the media for at least the past decade.
So, when Pitzel said, "Kitimat's flare is the highest quality flare in the world because of our insanely strict environmental regulations." He gave no proof of that assertion which completely ignored the numerous reports and studies that document just how difficult it is to monitor and study the emissions.

One of the presenters at the forum was environmental physician Dr. Dr. Tim Takaro professor emeritus in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Planetary Health lead at SFU’s new School of Medicine and a member of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the  Environment.

Takaro was also one of the authors in a recent peer-reviewed study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology “Analysis of Flaring Activity at Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Export Facilities Worldwide.” That study concluded that due to limitations in monitoring capacity and previous assumptions that most flaring occurred during operations, “Unfortunately, most environmental assessments overlook the start-up phase and fail to consider worst-case scenarios. As flaring is a source of air pollution, its potential health impacts on local populations may be underestimated in these assessments.”

As well as Patel and Takaro, the other speakers at the forum were Tracy Saxby, executive director of the Squamish based Sea to Sky group and indigenous Lax’yip Firekeepers Grace Vickers and Drew Harris. (This post was delayed by other commitments so it will concentrate on the Kitimat data presented and not on fracking or other issues)

Saxby described herself as a marine scientist with over 20 years experience who has worked as a visual science communication consultant with government and nonprofit organizations and universities around the world.

She said she and Tim Doty, who is a thermographer and consultant who used to work for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as a mobile monitoring manager came to Kitimat and spent a week monitoring emissions from both LNG Canada and Rio Tinto.

Doty’s TCHD Consulting LLC is located in Driftwood, Texas and provides technical, environmental, safety, and thermography consulting services to a variety of customers in the United States, Canada, and Europe. He has previously reported on problems with LNG emissions in both Louisiana and Texas.

Saxby and Doty used a specialized OGI (Optical Gas Imaging) camera to detect emissions that are invisible to the naked eye.

Flir, one manufacturing company defines an OGI camera as

Flir optical gas imaging (OGI) cameras can help you perform infrared gas detection, spotting methane (CH4), sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons, and hundreds of other industrial gases quickly, accurately, and safely—without shutting down systems.
OGI cameras are fitted with specialized filters to detect and visualize gases that are invisible to the naked eye. This allows inspectors to scan broad sections of equipment rapidly and survey areas that are hard to reach with traditional contact measurement tools. OGI cameras can also detect leaks from a safe distance, displaying these invisible gases as clouds of smoke.

The company website describes its camera Can You See Toxic Emissions with Thermal Cameras?

While often used by companies for safety purposes, the OGI cameras can also be used for environmental monitoring.

At the forum Saxby showed a few of the results from the camera when they used to monitor emissions from both LNG Canada and Rio Tinto. They captured more than one hundred images of visible and invisible pollution from the plants that will be published in the near future.

For the first set of images, they located across the Kitimat River about two kilometers away from the flare. There was clear blue sky and, at the time,, a small flare from the tower.

The specialized camera captured the flare stack and the flame. It also captured emissions that cannot be seen by the naked eye. The image shows an invisible plum of uncombusted and partially combusted hydrocarbons and methane and volatile organic compounds and there that were moving towards the community.

They then moved closer to the LNG facility, remaining on public land. That’s where the camera captured the plant’s hot stacks (also known as heater stacks) which are used as part of the liquefaction process to safely vent exhaust gases. In their shots they looked at five hot stacks that were also emitting pollution invisible to the naked eye with uncombusted and partially combusted hydrocarbons, methane, and volatile organic compounds.

Saxby said that Doty told the images proved LNG Canada is a “big polluter.”

The Rio Tinto plant was “quiet” for the first couple of days they were there and then they captured an image showing the emissions from both plants.

Takaro began his talk by going over the climate emergency and the rise in carbon dioxide levels over the past century and a half. He then concentrated on LNG Canada

“So, what is flaring? Flaring is the burning of excess gas during a startup facility and in maintenance and operations," he asked.

“For all these periods, the facility has flaring and its a as you've heard many times a requirement for safe operations.

“There are five flares at the LG Canada facility. The warm wet flare, the cold dry flare, the acid gas incinerator flare, the storage and loading flare and a spare or emergency flare.

“Each of the flare have role in the different stages of the operation.

“We know from the original environmental assessment that flaring was going to be happening at startup, but it was really quite minimized in the environmental assessment at the time. It was only recently when we began hearing that actual flaring is something that is always part of startup and it was always in the permits and discussions. I would just note that in addition, there are many pollutants coming off.”

Takaro said  the environmental assessment amendments were made in September 2023 and those air quality guidelines are actually outdated... The Canadian air quality guidelines were updated in 2025.

He said they had learned that LNG Canada was going to be intentionally release levels of sulfur dioxide, which would be in addition to the sulfur dioxide emitted by the Rio Tinto plant.

He then pointed to the study, where he was one of the authors that discovered there is more flaring than expected during start up of a facility.

“This is surprising and that's why we had this published in environmental science and technology, because the expectation from most of the regulators is that most of flaring will be in the routine operations. Most of the permits do not even consider the startup priod in their authorizations. It's through this study that we concluded that startup flaring is among the highest emission phases of the LNG plant life cycle. It can last for up to two years."

The team analyzed about 64 LNG facilities around the world. That is how they understood that emissions are systematically underestimated around the world. The scientists then also analyzed the documentation of the environmental assessments and concluded that that the BC risk assessments are inadequate to fully protect public health.

Turning to emissions from flaring, Takaro said the pollutants include nitrogen oxides, which irritate the lungs, cause inflammation and contribute also to cardiovascular disease heart disease; sulfur oxides, which are also oxidizing and irritable to the mucous membranes in our respiratory system. Particulate matter is associated with lung disease and cardiovascular disease. The emissions include benzene, which is a potent carcinogen chemical carcinogen ever classified. Benzene is a class 1A carcinogen. Many other polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which are also carcinogenic.
He referred to previous and somewhat controversial studies about emissions from natural gas from kitchen appliances across North America. That showed kitchen gas emissions in Vancouver which use gas from t Montney Formation has the largest benzene measurements from shale gas in North America.

Takaro recognized the work of the Kitimat air shed group and recommended visiting their website. He then pointed out that while the air shed does measure many pollutants, particularly concerning is the polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which are only occasionally measured.

In one example at the Haul Road station there were no polyaromatic hydrocarbon measurements. He noted to supplement these stationary monitors, "there is the roaming air monitoring vehicle, which has been in Kitimat off and on in Kitimat was here in 2024 and again in late 2025, The mobile monitor hasn’t returned recently so the group is requesting that it return to Kitimat.
The mobile monitor measures many pollutants as well the meteorological conditions. It has the ability to measure sensing which are not measured in any of the stationary monitors. Takara concluded there are significant gaps in how the emissions are measured in Kitimat, especially the levels of benzene.

UPDATE:  A couple of hours after this article was posted, the BC Energy Regulator announced on Facebook on June 11,

The RAM is a mobile unit designed to measure air quality while on the move or at a fixed location. As an additional monitoring point alongside the five fixed provincial air monitoring stations in Kitimat, it helps strengthen the overall monitoring network in the area.

What makes the RAM unique is its mobility - it can be deployed to specific locations and allows us to gather detailed, localized data where it’s needed most.

Takaro continued  that in February and March, there were 33 notifications of excess flaring from LNG Canada and “while these notifications are important, it's also noteworthy that sometimes the notification comes after the event and that is not very helpful when they're trying to protect public health. It is true that the air monitoring stations have not detected significant pollution. I've mentioned the gaps in those monitoring reports. What is most concerning about the flaring that's going on here is that the volumes that are being flared are far above what was authorized in the permits far above. In a period from September to January of this year, 40 to 60 times above.

“There have been a series of malfunctions in the facility. One of them is involving what's called backburn, which is a significant hazard that the company has worked very hard to prevent. By Increasing the volume of gas they've been able to prevent any serious backburn issue, but in the process, the temperatures of the flare tip exceeded expectations, and the flare tip was damaged beyond repair, and a different flare had to be used."

Takaro said, “Because of that excess flaring this facility was the most polluting LNG facility in the World.”

“Recently, the [BC] energy regulator did issue an order for LNG Canada to control its black smoke flaring. It has required the company to issue a report in mid August and to do o something to remediate this problem by October.

“The crack [in the flare tip] was noted first on February 18th, and another crack appeared few days later. This required gas to be diverted to a spare flare or also known as emergency flare. This flare is not permitted. In other words, there's no limit on the amount that is working in it. I’ll also note that both the cold dry flare and the storage loading flares have exceeded the limits.
“During March this year, the acid gas incinerator, which is one of the two production trains, were taken offline when there was a maintenance issue with the acid gas incinerator. When those incinerators not operating, the gases that are released are even more polluting than when the acid gas incinerator is operational. That's when you have seen these two flares operating the smaller one or the shorter that serves their emergency flare. I'll just note that these operational issues are being monitored, but the speed of response to me as a public health physician, seems very slow.

“The things that we're most concerned about are there is an acute Immediate response to air pollution, where the small airways close because of the inflammation and if relief is not found for the relaxation of those bronchioles that can lead to death. Heart attacks, of course, are often deadly.

“The inflammation from particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide can cause the vessels of the heart to spasm and close off, creating heart attacks.

“Another important health impacts of these pollutants are preterm birth. I mentioned before the benzene which causes cancer particularly associated with childhood leukemia and then overall early mortality.

“We know from studies in the United States that these exposures are very costly to the health system. We know that the emissions have been systematically underestimated in places like Australia.
“In Australia the class 1A carcinogen in benzene, the official release number was initially.500 tons. What actually was released was 13,000% more than what had been registered.
“We know from studying Texas of flaring facilities in from the Eagle Ford Shale [in south Texas] that living within 5 kilometers of a single flare stack for 10 days per year increases premature birth rates by 50 per cent. “

(The 2022 study is available from the United States National Library of Medicine Environmental Justice Dimensions of Oil and Gas Flaring in South Texas: Disproportionate Exposure among Hispanic communities 

The abstract of the study reads.
Eagle Ford shale play, Texas, one of the most productive regions in the United States. Nearly 400,000 people live within 5 km of an unconventional oil or gas wells in this largely rural area. Flaring is associated primarily with unconventional oil wells and is an increasingly common practice in the Eagle Ford to dispose of excess gas through combustion. Flares can operate continuously for months and release hazardous air pollutants such as particulate matter and volatile organic compounds in addition to causing light and noise pollution and noxious odors. We estimated ethnic disparities in exposure to flaring using satellite observations from the Visible Infrared Imaging Spectroradiometer between March 2012-December 2016. Census blocks with majority Hispanic (>60%) populations were exposed to twice as many nightly flare events within 5 km as those with <20% Hispanics. We found that Hispanics were exposed to more flares despite being less likely than non-Hispanic White residents to live near unconventional oil and gas wells. Our findings suggest Hispanics are disproportionately exposed to flares in the Eagle Ford Shale, a pattern known as environmental injustice, which could contribute to disparities in air pollution and other nuisance exposures.

Takaro showed a map that showed most of Kitmat and Haisla is within that five kilometre zone.

“Certainly, more research is needed in this area. There is actually not very much information about only flaring operations. There's more information now about fracking.”

He concluded by saying, “Certainly more information is needed to understand what the hazards are. Wiith regards to low birth weight, but I would just point out on this map where 5 kilometers is from the centre there in the flare stack at LNG Canada. It includes the Kitimat village, the Haisla village, as well as most of the town. This is only one source of pollution that we've been talking about, there are many in this air shed, including when the wildfire smoke comes through. It's important to understand that we are considering adding more pollution to this air shed with phase two of LNG Canada and with cedar LNG. It's important to keep in mind what these hazards are."

Ankur Patel began his talk by saying “I'm a registered nurse and what you might not know is as part of being a registered nurse, my ethical framework, my ethical duty is to advocate for the needs of our patients. And it is quite literally written into our framework that part of this is discussing the impacts on the land because the environmental determinants really felt what it needs to be. The land is something we need to discuss. As well, the air is the water, everything impacts our community are part of our health profile, our patient profile.

What's this doing to my patients? What is this doing to my family? What is this doing to the people who raised me and educated me?

“I want to talk about my experience as a registered nurse in the community. What am I seeing? What am I seeing reported to me? We need to understand who is most heavily I impacted, who are our vulnerable population? These are our childbearing people, those who carry a child in need around. These are also our youngest those whose immune and respiratory symptoms immune and respiratory systems are just developing.

“This is also our older population which we know we have been ever growing older... these residents are some of those who have the least compliant health system. They cannot respond to this and the way that you and I. So, what is reporting to me that when they're seeing this black smoke in the sky, when this is entering their lungs, when this is entering the bodies, they're having an increased symptom. They're saying at peak flaring times they're having more coughing, more difficulty breathing, more respiratory irritation. Some of our most vulnerable populations are already impacted by respiratory disease, asthma or COPD, someone who's been a smoker.

“Residents rely on medications, rely on puffers to p pen up their airways. They're what they're saying is, during these flaring times, they're having to use these so often they're using these puffers more often to get through their daily task of living. They're using it to go walking, to have to get through daily activities like gardening or getting groceries. So, I'm seeing an increase in lines of medications.

“An experiment is being done in our community and in ways that we have never seen before, you know, these are our statements that you'll hear quite often. This industry is developed in a way that's quite new. It's novel. We're learning more. We're learning as we're doing it, so the community is left with question, how is this impacting my family? How is this Impacting my friends? How is this impacting my fellow residents?

“This is the largest private investment in Canadian history. Nothing has compared to this. So, what's happening here? What’s going on in our community? You know, we're seeing this black smoke. But you know we're quite aware that this. Black smoke shouldn't be here. As Tim already dug into a little bit earlier, clearing is happening when there's too much pressure on the system. We've distracted too much methane we certainly don't want explosions. So, we have to burn it off. Why is the black smoke? Smoke happens in three main conditions. It happens when the temperature is off. The flare isn't burning at the right temperature, or if the balance is oxygen is right. You're not pumping enough oxygen to maintain the fire as it does or if there's other contaminants. So those are the conditions in which we get the smoke.”

Patel then outlined how Dawson Creek, in a fracking zone and Hazelton and Terrace along the pipeline route asked for the independent assessment of the health risks from the projects. He made a similar presentation to District of Kitimat council on June 1 which was dismissed four to two with little debate and without considering the scientific studies that are the reasons for an independent study of the effects of industry on human health in northern British Columbia.

Related links

Texas Expert Calls Out B.C.’s ‘Free Pass’ for LNG Canada As Expansion Loom

CBC Methane emissions escaping from oil and gas sites underestimated, new reports suggest.

PBS News Hour report  The Challenge ofTracking Methane Emissions and Why They Are Higher Than Reported.