Clean or Green?

Coffee Roasting in the City of Vancouver:

An Assessment of Principle and Practice

Report researched and prepared by

Edward T.W. Perkins

1686 Charles St. #4

Vancouver, BC

V5L 2T3

Telephone: 778-386-0286

e-mail: etwperkins@gmail.com

In a letter to the Islands Trust dated 29-Nov-08, George Grams of

Inveresk Design Build Inc. made certain representations on behalf of

the Salt Spring Coffee Co. regarding their application to rezone 1501

Fulford Ganges Rd. and develop the property into a coffee roasting

facility.

The intention of this report is to address the key substantive claims

made by Mr. Grams and the Salt Spring Coffee Co, hereinafter referred

to as “the Applicant.”

Preface

One key issue raised by the Applicant is the apparent lack of

independent, peer-reviewed scientific studies on the environmental

effects of coffee roasting, leading Mr. Grams to the conclude that

neither himself nor the neighbours are in possession of any

“independent scientific data in support of their contention that

pollution is an issue.” As an alternative to such a document, Mr. Grams

cites a private study—commissioned by the Applicant and undertaken

by Streamline Environmental—titled “The Environmental Impact

Assessment” (EIA). Despite the obvious fact that an industry review is

in no way comparable to an independent survey, and that to infer as

much is indicative of a willful lapse in critical judgment on the part of

Mr. Grams and his client, the findings of the EIA (and the Applicant’s

interpretation thereof) do provide a good starting point for additional

research.

Given the paucity of hard data, the Applicant suggests that the Islands

Trust should review the common practice, legislation and experience

surrounding roasting in the City of Vancouver, where the specialty

coffee industry has been active and expanding for nearly two decades.

This report has taken Mr. Grams’ advice.
Combining eyewitness observation and informational interviews conducted with

representatives of both the City of Vancouver and the JJ Bean

Wholesale department (which is in the process of selling its roasting

and emission control equipment to the Salt Spring Coffee Co.), this

report aims to furnish some clear answers to the obfuscatory

arguments presented by the Applicant.

Zoning Policy

“Zoning regulates the development of property in the city by

encouraging proper land use and building compatibility in accordance

with community goals and visions for the future of the city and its

neighbourhoods.”

-City of Vancouver Community Services Group Brochure

While it may seem small in scale, JJ Bean’s roasting facility runs eight

hours a day, six days a week, roasting over 500,000 pounds of coffee

every year.

The area surrounding the JJ Bean roasting facility at the intersection of

Powell St. and Victoria Drive in East Vancouver is notable for an

abundance of industry. Within a radius of a few city blocks can be

found a chicken rendering plant, a fish products rendering plant, an

asphalt manufacturing facility, the now defunct Terminal City Iron

Works (recently converted into a post-apocalyptic film set) the

Canadian Pacific Railway, the Port of Vancouver, and many smaller

businesses selling automotive parts, self-storage and scrap metal.

There are a half-dozen single family homes up the street on Victoria

Drive, several of which are adorned with “for sale” signs.

In his letter to the Islands Trust, Mr. Grams asserts that, in the

context of the City of Vancouver, “unless it can be clearly shown that

smoke and smell are a pervasive issue, then the Environmental Impact

Assessment, which confirms that neither pollution nor smoke nor smell

should be a concern, must be regarded as the defining document.”

At this time, there is little evidence to suggest that emissions from

coffee roasting are a “pervasive problem” throughout the City.

However, one cannot take this fact at face value: Vancouver has a

well-developed and rigorously enforced policy of keeping all potentially

harmful and/or obnoxious industrial activities at a safe distance from

residential areas.

In the City of Vancouver, coffee roasting is defined according to the

Zoning and Development By-law (Section II; p. 7) as “Food Products

Manufacturing.” According to Mahbod Biazi, a Development Officer at

City Hall, this definition requires all coffee roasting activity (excepting

in-store small batch roasting in commercial areas) to be confined to

sectors of the city which have been set aside for industry, protected

from residential neighbourhoods by major urban infrastructure such as

parks and highways, geographic features such as waterways, and

commercial “buffer zones.” The question of whether or not there are

disagreeable emissions from modern roasting facilities such as the one

proposed by the applicant and currently operated by JJ Bean is thus

largely solved in Vancouver without too much controversy.

A development of the proposed type in the Ford Lake area on Salt

Spring Island would not be permitted in the City of Vancouver.

Emissions

“[The EIA] makes no mention of the frequency of complaints

due to coffee so we can make no assessment as to whether

or not it was an issue in the areas studied. Our suggestion,

namely that the Island’s Trust contact Vancouver to

determine if this is a ubiquitous problem, is still the most

valid means to assess this as potential grounds for refusal.”

As evidenced in the preceding passage contained in Mr. Grams’ letter,

the Applicant is of the opinion that because the EIA contains no

information concerning complaints from residents in the vicinity of

coffee roasting facilities in Vancouver, then consequently unpleasant

emissions do not amount to a “pervasive problem.” Notwithstanding

Mr. Grams’ consistent reliance on circular reasoning to argue his case,

this report finds that, at least within the mainly industrial area

surrounding the JJ Bean facility, there have been several complaints by

neighbours about the unpleasant smell of roasting coffee which have

not only prompted JJ Bean to make difficult choices in the operation of

their emissions control equipment, but also to purchase more

environmentally friendly equipment even as they sell off the old plant

to the Applicant.

In modern coffee roasting, the release of unpleasant and dangerous

vapours is limited by the installation of an “afterburner”—essentially a

natural gas burning furnace located within the main smokestack—

which, when running reliably and turned up to maximum heat is

capable of burning off a significant portion of emissions.

Citing their own EIA as well as a report the afterburner manufacturer,

the Applicant suggests that thanks to this technology, emissions will

be negligible.

On the ground, however, the situation is more complicated. According

to David Long, chief roaster and manager of JJ Beans’ wholesale

department, reducing emissions from the coffee roasting itself comes

with a heavy financial and environmental price.

“We received a call from the City about eight months ago.

They informed us that there had been some complaints in the

neighbourhood about the smell of roasting coffee. I was a

little surprised, considering how pervasive the smell from the

chicken rendering plant can be. The city said we needed to

reduce our emissions, and the only way to do that is to

increase the temperature of our afterburner from 500 C to a

little over 600 C. I don’t pay the bills, but I can tell you that it

massively increases our consumption of natural gas—more

than enough to heat houses in winter—and significantly

increases our environmental footprint. At the end of the day,

you are left with a choice. What do you want: odors or a

bigger carbon footprint?”

He added that JJ Bean was in the process of acquiring a new

afterburner, equipped with a computer controlled timing system

capable of regulating the temperature inside the burner.

He explainedthat the first fifteen minutes of the twenty minute roasting process

create much less smoke and odour than do the final five minutes. The

new machine accommodates this discrepancy by automatically raising

and lowering the temperatures over the course of the roasting,

thereby increasing fuel efficiency. Long also noted that the old

afterburner, which they are selling to the Salt Spring Coffee Co., is not

equipped with such a mechanism.

In addition to such concerns over the operation of the afterburner

itself, Mr. Long outlined several related emissions problems.

The afterburner is located just below the smokestack, and is therefore

most effective when it is burning off the heated gases and particulate

emanating directly up from the main roasting oven. In the facility that

is being sold to the Applicant, several other pipes that do not ascend

vertically into the afterburner ventilate the main oven and other

features of the roasting machine. The result is a forest of pipes

carrying unburnt emissions laterally across the factory ceiling. Even if

well maintained, lateral pipes tend to release unburnt smoke directly

into the environment, and when they are old and patched like those

pictured in the attached photographs, they can end up responsible for

a significant portion of emissions.

Conclusion

Given the status and performance of the equipment that is being sold

to the Applicant, the issue of emissions at the proposed Fulford-

Ganges Rd. development comes down to one simple choice: do you

want to be clean or green?

If the reality of the roasting process is that the roaster must decide

between unpleasant emissions and massively increased fuel

consumption and its associated costs (transport onto the island,

greater environmental footprint from burning fossil fuels etc.), then it

seems clear that the Applicant would be best served by following the

example set by the City of Vancouver. If the proposed roasting facility

were to be built in an industrial area separated from residential

neighbourhoods and environmentally sensitive areas such as Ford

Lake, then the Applicant could operate the facility more responsibly,

using less natural gas without constantly worrying that roasting

emissions were negatively affecting its neighbours.

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