A regulatory order over black smoke spewing from LNG Canada\u2019s Kitimat facility is the latest development in a months-long pattern of excessive flaring that has left residents and health experts alarmed\u2014and largely in the dark.<\/p>\n
The British Columbia Energy Regulator (BCER) ordered<\/a> [pdf] LNG Canada in late April to document all black smoke flaring events, identify the causes, and implement corrective measures by October. Black smoke contains particulate matter and unburned hydrocarbons, and must be avoided \u201cexcept for periods not to exceed a total of five minutes during any two consecutive hours,\u201d according to<\/a> the regulator\u2019s flaring guidelines. If black smoke is observed above this threshold, the BCER must be notified.<\/p>\n But on January 6, the LNG Canada facility, owned by a consortium consisting mostly of international fossil companies, emitted black smoke for more than seven hours during non-emergency conditions, while a second event the following day lasted more than two hours. That means LNG Canada is failing to comply with condition 38<\/a> of its amended permit, which allows the company to emit no black smoke at all during normal operations, and no more than 15 minutes\u2019 worth in any two-hour period during process upsets\u2014already more permissive than the BCER\u2019s own general guideline of five minutes.<\/p>\n The BCER order comes almost four months after the regulator first identified the black smoke problem\u2014and it only addresses a visible symptom of a deeper problem.<\/p>\n Documents obtained through a freedom of information request and reviewed by The Narwhal<\/a> reveal that LNG Canada has known about a malfunction in its flare stack since at least April 2025. That\u2019s when it disclosed<\/a> an \u201cintegrity concern\u201d involving the stack to the BCER, explaining it would take three years to fix. LNG Canada\u2014which is co-owned by Shell, Malaysian state fossil Petronas, state-owned PetroChina, Japan\u2019s Mitsubishi Corp, and the Korea Gas Corporation\u2014also told the regulator it would route additional gas to the stack to \u201chelp mitigate identified integrity risks.\u201d<\/p>\n But that news was never made public, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) writes<\/a> in a release. The scale of the flaring is only now coming into focus thanks to documents obtained separately by Laura Minet, head of the Clean Air Lab at the University of Victoria. Minet found that flaring exceeded permitted levels by 40 to 45 times<\/a> on average between October 2025 and January 2026, and by more than 60 times in December alone.<\/p>\n \u201cThe intensity and duration of flaring events\u2014sometimes producing flames as tall as a 26-story building, or up to 90 metres\u2014are a growing community health concern in Kitimat,\u201d CAPE says, adding that the consortium tends to issue public flare notices<\/a> only after the fact. \u201cNotifying people after a flaring event does not allow them to protect themselves,\u201d said Tim Takaro, a Simon Fraser University professor emeritus trained in occupational and environmental medicine, quoted in the CAPE release.<\/p>\n The BCER maintains<\/a> that air quality readings around Kitimat don\u2019t indicate any public or environmental safety risk due to the flaring. But at least one local health professional says he\u2019s hearing something different on the ground.<\/p>\n \u201cSince LNG Canada began operations, dark plumes from flaring over my town have seemed constant, and I\u2019m seeing the impact locally,\u201d Kitimat-based registered nurse Ankur Patel, a member of the Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment, told CAPE.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard first-hand from residents whose symptoms worsen during heavy flaring events, and require more medications to breathe comfortably, with seniors and people with heart and lung disease being particularly vulnerable,\u201d he said. People \u201cdeserve a regulatory system that protects them.\u201d<\/p>\n CAPE adds that every flaring event releases a \u201ctoxic mix of air pollutants\u201d including particulate matter, black carbon, nitrogen and sulphur oxides, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs include benzene, a carcinogen so potent that \u201cno safe exposure level has been found.\u201d Benzene is neither routinely measured nor reported at LNG facilities in British Columbia, CAPE writes, and there has been no comprehensive study of the human health risks posed by these facilities.<\/p>\n \u201cHazardous air pollution at LNG Canada is not being adequately monitored or reported to health authorities,\u201d Takaro said, even though \u201cacute exposure to flared gases can trigger an asthma attack,\u201d while long-term exposure to benzene is a clear cancer risk. In an interview with The Energy Mix, he said there is also uncertainty about exactly what toxins are in the black smoke.<\/p>\n A number of regulatory questions also remain to be clarified, including why LNG Canada\u2019s permit<\/a> on black smoke release exceeds the BCER\u2019s standard maximum. Another is whether the faulty flare stack is considered to be operating under emergency conditions.<\/p>\n LNG Canada did not respond by deadline to questions emailed by The Mix. This story will be updated when we receive a response.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, other affected communities are speaking up, with Terrace now the fourth municipality in B.C. to ask the province to conduct an independent cumulative health impact assessment of the natural gas industry, CBC News reports<\/a>. Hazelton, Squamish, and Dawson Creek have all made the same request.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A regulatory order over black smoke spewing from LNG Canada\u2019s Kitimat facility is the latest development in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4554,17,6935],"class_list":{"0":"post-32322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-byline-internal","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-dow"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}