A power outage at Teck Trail Operations raised the sound of alarms and lead to an increase in smoke from the stacks on Easter Sunday.
Just before 7:30 p.m., the plant experienced an unplanned power outage for approximately two hours, according to Catherine Adair, Teck’s community relations leader.
The outage affected plants related to zinc processing and during the event additional sulphur dioxide (SO2) monitoring was conducted within the operation and the local community, explained Adair.
“Although emissions were visible from the operation, we remained within our permit levels for community SO2 concentrations,” she said in an email response.
Alarms were activated when power was lost, prompting non-essential personnel to vacate the plants until operations returned to normal.