An opportunity in heat exchange at Canada Games Pool
Coun. Jonathan Cote is absolutely right that a plan to refurbish and upgrade the Canada Games Pool is essential. The pool and adjoining community centre are vital recreation facilities needed for a healthy city.
However let’s imagine a little further. For years I’ve heard musing but never any serious investigation about taking advantage of the fact the Royal City Curling Club is directly next door to this facility.
All winter the curling club discharges enormous volumes of heat as it keeps its ice sheets frozen. At the same time the Canada Games Pool uses a tremendous amount of energy and creates even more greenhouse gases to heat the pool and adjoining community centre.
The synergy could not be more obvious on how all parties, the environment and taxpayers, could benefit by a joint heating/cooling system, reusing the waste heat from one facility to heat the other. I’ve been told there would be challenges, such as the fact one is a public facility while the other a private club. Irrelevant. We need to work past any jurisdictional issues and just get it done.
With the pending deadline imposed by the provincial government in Bill C-27, municipalities must either be carbon neutral by 2012 or pay for offsets to the Pacific Carbon Trust, which funds GHG reduction projects, such as at highly profitable corporations like EnCana.
I for one would rather see my tax dollars go to local projects such as a refurbished Canada Games Pool than toward corporate welfare for the fossil fuel industry. So good on Coun. Cote for raising this important issue. Let’s stop talking about these vital projects that need to be done to create a vibrant, livable New West, and let’s start doing them!
Matthew Laird, New Westminster
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