Metro Vancouver politicians and bureaucrats faced a cold reception from Chilliwack residents and Fraser Valley politicians Wednesday night at the consultation meeting into Metro's draft waste management plan.

"You brought the wrong dog and pony show," Mayor Sharon Gaetz said to the panel, which included Delta mayor and Metro Chair Lois Jackson, and Port Coquitlam mayor and waste management committee chair Greg Moore.

Gaetz added that even though Metro was involved in the successful fight against the SE2 power project five years ago, things have changed.

"What will you say when SE3 comes knocking?" she asked. "I'm afraid you'll have to be silent because you've lost credibility." The meeting was the latest in the ongoing consultation meetings Metro has held to present its plan, which at its heart is a proposal to build a waste-to-energy (WTE) incineration facility rather than continue to truck garbage to the Cache Creek landfill.

Opponents of the plan from across the Lower Mainland point to the unique funnel-like airshed in the Fraser Valley that simply cannot take more point sources of air pollution.

Before the public meeting and during the open house, Zero Waste B.C.

organized a small rally in front of the Best Western in Chilliwack where the meeting was held. John Vissers led the rally and introduced speakers that included Gaetz, Abbotsford Coun. Patricia Ross, Ben West from the Wilderness Committee and Alexandria Mitchell, an Abbotsford high school student and an environmental activist.

"We should be talking about closing down the Burnaby incinerator rather than talking about new incineration," Gaetz told the crowd of 50-or-so that gathered outside.

"Garbage is one of the most toxic, complex, unpredictable fuels on the planet," Ross said.

West, who has attended many of the other Metro consultation meetings, said the proponents are doing a good job of making a sales pitch, something with which many inside the meeting quickly agreed.

To start the meeting, both Jackson and Moore spoke to the audience of more than 150 about Metro's plans. The plan is a draft, they are seeking comment, and the final version will be presented to Environment Minister Barry Penner by the fall.

Things were mostly polite as Metro's corporate communications director David Hocking presented the plan. That is, until he suggested there was community support for WTE pointing to a study that found 63 per cent of Metro residents support WTE and 37 per cent of Fraser Valley residents did. He then mentioned another study had produced different results, but he declined to mention what those results were.

"This is a sales pitch," called out Chilliwack resident Jim Phelps, interrupting Hocking. "This is pure sales job, nothing else." The rest of the presentation compared landfills to mechanical biological treatment to a WTE incineration plant.

"Waste-to-energy clearly outperforms the other two options," was the conclusion.

There were three main points pushed by Metro in the plan: Air quality will not be affected by a WTE plant even though, if Metro can reach its diversion targets, the plant will be required to burn more than a million tonnes of garbage a year by 2015; there would be negative net air emissions because the energy generated through WTE would replace fossil fuels; and finally, that WTE is the cheapest in the long-run, something disputed by Gaetz and City of Chilliwack staff research.

Chilliwack MLA John Les was also unmoved by the presentation.

"The more I listen, the more skeptical I'm becoming," he said to the panel to much applause from the crowd. "People in the Fraser Valley are not interested in incineration." Glen Thompson of Friends of the Chilliwack River Valley also did not trust the information provided by Metro.

"We're not being given the full story and for that reason I don't trust this panel," he said. "I think your plan stinks." Cache Creek's mayor John Ranta suggested the entire draft plan was based on a false assumption, namely, that the Cache Creek landfill can't expand. In fact, the environment ministry issued an environmental assessment certificate for the proposed landfill extension in January.

"I've never heard such a smoke and mirrors show in all my life," Ranta said.

Gaetz has called on the public to continue to submit comments to Metro and to Penner.

The deadline for the submission of comments on Metro's plan is July 14 and the plan can be reviewed at www.metrovancouver.org.