On June 1, 2026, four members of the District of Kitimat Council, Mayor Phil Germuth, Councillors Mario Feldhoff, Edwin Empinado and Graham Pitzel failed in their duty to the residents of Kitimat by voting against participation in the request to join Dawon Creek, Hazelton and Terrace in asking the province to conduct a comprehensive assessment of hazards to human health along the liquefied natural gas production chain from the fracking wells along the pipeline to the LNG facility here in Kitimat. Councillors Gerry Leibel and Michelle Martins, who chairs the Kitimat Airshed Group voted in favour of the motion. Councillor Terry Marleau was absent.

The motion from Councillor Gerry Leibel read:

"That the District of Kitimat provide a letter of support to the health officers of B.C.'s request for an independent, comprehensive health impacts assessment of the B.C. gas industry, including cumulative impacts from fracking, processing, transportation, export and combustion emissions; and further that the province ensures the assessment is adequately resourced and informed by Indigenous communities, health researchers and healthcare professionals."

In voting against the motion, the four ignored their duty to “do no harm” and protect the health of their constituents young and old.

Watching the debate that Monday night it seemed to me that a council that lives in a rainforest spent more time and energy debating about maintaining the kind of pristine lawns that originated in the stately, aristocratic homes in rural England than the health of the residents of Kitimat.

This is no longer the old debate about proposals and proponents for a bitumen pipeline or an LNG plant. Kitimat made the decision to reject bitumen and embrace LNG.

Council was just repeating the same old same old arguments from a decade ago. Talk about flogging a dead horse.

I didn't take a public editorial stand on the bitumen and LNG debates. I saw the arguments on both sides, although I was always worried about the long-term environmental consequences. This time is different. Council supported LNG, now it must take full responsibility for that decision and make sure that the community health is safeguarded. With its June 1 vote the mayor and three members of council abandoned that responsibility.

Neither LNG Canada nor Rio Tinto are going to pack up their bags and billion-dollar operations and go elsewhere. (Or as one friend said on the weekend, beam up the plants to another location).
The worst offender in the debate was Councillor Graham Pitzel, who without citing any of the many studies from around the world on flaring emissions said that studies can sometimes be influenced by preconceived conclusions, saying that peer reviewed studies that there are health harms from emissions that the question was automatically biased. That is straight out of Donald Trump and the US Republican Party’s contemptuous war on science and medicine.

It should be pointed out that many of the studies on the health harms of flaring come from Texas and Louisiana, which are mostly flat open country, not an enclosed valley like Kitimat. Qatar, the world’s largest LNG producer is a desert country.

Read the full report with links to emissions studies

"You'll never look into the positive economic benefits and directly compare them," Pitzel said.

Pitzel then displayed his own biases by saying “Kitimat's flare is the highest quality flare in the world because of our insanely strict environmental regulations." In fact, satellite imaging and recent studies show that the flaring earlier this year was among the worst in the world.

To talk about comparing positive economic benefits to the health of people in Kitimat, rather than the moral imperative to do no harm, let’s talk about costs. With this vote, unless it is reversed, this Council have just downloaded the costs of health care in Kitimat to future generations and future councils.

I can foresee a future council passing a desperate resolution asking for provincial and federal money for a respiratory clinic at Kitimat General Hospital.

I can see a future council meeting concerned with asking for more cancer care in Kitimat.

I can foresee a future council passing a resolution concerning about inadequate prenatal and maternity care in Kitimat.

I can foresee a future council moaning that all medical services are concentrated at the Ksyen Regional Hospital in Terrace and groaning about the hazards of sick people having to drive to Terrace in the winter.

Right now, there is a doctor shortage in Kitimat. So, councillors, where are the doctors who can handle the health problems resulting from the emissions, especially for the more vulnerable people, First Nations, pregnant women, young children, and the elderly?

Speaking of budgets and money that comprehensive health assessment, if it goes ahead, would be paid for by the province of British Columbia, so it wouldn’t make a dent in the District of Kitimat budget.

The councillors brought out the tired old argument about too many regulations. How can they know if the regulations are adequate if there are no studies of all the emissions in the air shed? They were just guessing.

Who knows the studies may indicate the current regulations are doing the job. But without a comprehensive, independent study, the council has no idea if they are working.

As for depending on the current data from the air shed monitoring which was called inadequate at the forum, Michelle Martins as council representative on the air shed group said.

"The monitors are owned by Rio Tinto, and the monitoring is done through a company called Trinity that is hired by Rio Tinto… The Kitimat Airshed Group has no ownership or authority over these monitors. Individual monitors have experienced glitches at times when they weren't working properly, and one monitor in particular took years to get power to it."

Martins added that any monitoring infrastructure be controlled by either the Airshed Group or local government.

The four councillors seemed perfectly satisfied with the data provided by industry rather than seeking an independent perspective. If that isn’t bias, what is?

When Mayor Phil Germuth commented the other communities such as Hazelton and Terrace don't have the information Kitimat has, that was arrogant, especially when it comes to Dawson Creek, which does have information about fracking in the region. Did anyone at the District bother to ask those communities? "They haven't had the presentations that we've had of just how clean our air quality is," the mayor said.

I don’t remember ever hearing a presentation on how “clean” Kitimat air is. Where did that come from? (cough, cough) After the council vote, there were comments on social media saying that Kitimat’s air has been polluted since the 1950s, so “so what?”

Asking for better air monitoring is not going to affect a Final Investment Decision on LNG Canada Phase Two. That will depend on the volatile energy market thanks to the war with Iran. There is a short-term spike in demand for LNG, but numerous reports say that countries are ramping up renewables for both national security and security of supply. A investment decision will be a business decision.

The ten minutes that rules allowed Ankur Patel to present the concerns about health care was inadequate to the task. The forum at Mount Elizabeth Theatre went on for two and half hours. The council seemed to believe that any comprehensive health study would be limited to LNG. The word comprehensive means that all industries in the Kitimat valley would be studied, as they should be.

patelpresntation Ankur Patel's slides for the presentation to District Council. (PDF)

The District of Kitimat Council has a chance before the October elections to do the right thing, revisit the motion and join the request for a comprehensive health study. If the council insists on burying their heads in a pile of grass cuttings, come October the voters of Kitimat should consider supporting candidates who do want a healthy environment in the valley.