Can you smell or hear Harmac on Gabriola?
You live on Gabriola, so you know about the Harmac pulp mill in Nanaimo, just a mile or so from our island. And you’ve probably been reminded of Harmac’s presence when the wind blows from Harmac to Gabriola, and you get That Pulp Mill Smell. Not so pleasant.
What I want to know is this:
- Where on Gabriola can you smell that Harmac smell?
- Are there places on Gabriola where one never smells Harmac?
- What about the sound – can you hear Harmac from your place?
I know people are wondering about this stuff, because web searchers arrive at this blog after searching for things like:
- bad Gabriola island smell
- can you hear Harmac from all over Gabriola?
- pollution problem Gabriola
- what is bad smell on Gabriola?
and so forth. (They find my previous blog post about Harmac.) I also had a letter from a reader asking about Harmac. This reader plans to move here, and wants to know about Harmac’s effect on the island before deciding which (if any) property to buy on Gabriola.
Please help by sharing what you’ve noticed about Harmac’s effect (or lack of effect) on your neighbourhood.
Filed in environment,Gabriola Island 7 Comments so far
7 Responses to “Can you smell or hear Harmac on Gabriola?”
cheryl on 29 Mar 2010 at 5:01 am #
For the past 2 or 3 days the Harmac smell has been bad. We live at the very south end of the Island. But we can’t hear it.
Viv on 29 Mar 2010 at 9:52 am #
We’re in Phase 4 and so far, I have not been able to smell Harmac. But then, we’ve only been here a month.
Prior to this we lived on North Rd near Peterson. It was very, very rare to smell it there and if we did, it was almost not noticeable.
pericat on 29 Mar 2010 at 12:24 pm #
We’re up the hill from the RCMP station. We can smell the mill on still days, usually.
rick on 29 Mar 2010 at 4:15 pm #
To those living on the southwest side of Gabriola, from Canso Drive around to the upper end of Harrison Way and Dempsy, Harmac sounds like a giant refrigerator running all night. Most folks get pretty used to it after a short while. The odd beeping and clanging may stand out, and the whistle that sounds three times a day can be heard for a long way if the wind is right. The sea lions that hang out at Harmac’s waterfront are a noisy bunch too, but somehow less offensive than the sounds of industry.
Harmac’s smells, under ‘normal’ conditions, are borne up and to the south of Gabriola. During certain weather conditions – a temperature inversion of sorts – the plume spreads out low over a large radius which includes most of Gabriola, although it rarley hits the Whalebone or Silva Bay area.
It must be noted that, in it’s heyday, the smell of Harmac was not an issue for most folks in Nanaimo, either because they couldn’t smell it after the first half hour, or they realized what an important part of their economy it was. When a naive Gabrioloid would ask what the nasty smell was, a defensive Nanaimoite would be quick to say, “It’s the smell of money.”
The future of Harmac is not certain. If the market for pulp fades, and the market for waterfront property near Nanaimo booms, things may change.
specialk on 29 Mar 2010 at 5:18 pm #
After consulting with the brains of the family… mine doesn’t seem to work the way it used to (sniff, sniff, smells like sulphur out here doesn’t it?)…
- Phase 4 (Spruce and Balsam roughly), lived there for 4-5 years and would guess that maybe one day a month you could smell something… perhaps sometimes twice a month, or sometimes once every two months.
- Now living behind RCMP station (Berg, Pat Burns area) for almost 1 year – and would guess that it is 2 to 3 times as frequent.
Mortimer on 30 Mar 2010 at 6:26 pm #
We are near Horseshoe and Daniel and get the stink about twice a month when the wind is from the south and can also hear a distant rumble and screeching sound. I guess this is the best we can expect from neighbors that don’t even want to pay their taxes.
Sarah-Paige on 31 Mar 2010 at 11:21 am #
I live up behind the Police Station, and haven’t really been bothered too much by Harmac. We do smell it occasionally, usually before rain arrives, but not nearly as much as we did several years ago (then it was almost daily). Their whistle keeps my family on schedule sometimes, but as far as plant noise goes, we are more likely to hear the seals than Harmac. New Years is celebrated with their whistle blasts at my place. The three of us have either been conditioned with our 13 years of residence or Harmac isn’t really that invasive in my area.