THE TROUBLE WITH bagels
The city of Montreal has known for years that hazardous emissions from the wood-burning ovens at the Fairmount and St-Viateur bagel bakeries are many times the legal limits. So why is the problem allowed to continue?
Dominique Charbonneau cradles her six-week-old baby in the kitchen of her Clark St. apartment, just around the corner from Fairmount Bagel and a few hundred metres from two St-Viateur bagel bakeries.
Bagel lovers might be envious, but living in Bagel Central has some serious downsides.
With the windows open, the smell of wood smoke in this kitchen is strong enough to give a visitor, who does not suffer from asthma or any other respiratory ailment, a brief coughing fit and watery eyes.
Charbonneau moved to Mile End with her husband and two young children two years ago. The previous tenants advised them not to put clothes on the line outside, and to close the windows when the wind blew their way.
But Charbonneau had also heard that residents were pushing the city to enforce air quality bylaws, and she assumed the authorities wouldn’t tolerate the problem for long if it was serious.
“I knew the neighbours were fighting it already and I thought, ‘This can’t go on forever. It’s got to change.’
“So we moved in, but we realized quickly that it was completely unacceptable. We can’t open our windows in the summertime. Often the winds bring the smoke right into the house. It’s atrocious.”
Neighbours like François Grenier and Sarah Gilbert have been trying for years to get the city to take action on the issue.
Grenier first complained about Fairmount Bagel — Montreal’s oldest bagel bakery — to the city’s environment department 20 years ago, soon after he moved into the neighbourhood.
Sarah Gilbert’s first complaint about St-Viateur Bagel Mile-End dates to 2007, when she was pregnant and the smoke was making her sick.
While some cling to the idea that wood smoke is “natural” and essential to certain types of cuisine, public-health officials have been working hard in recent years to get the message across that it is, in fact, harmful to human health.
Wood smoke contains more than 100 toxic substances, including fine particulate, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene and formaldehyde.
In 2013, the World Health Organization classified the fine particulate matter in wood smoke as a carcinogen. These particles are so small that they can penetrate deep into the lungs and have serious health consequences.
Jurisdictions across North America are taking action to reduce wood smoke emissions, and Montreal is no exception. In fact, its regulations are among the most stringent — when it comes to private residences.
Under the city’s bylaw, adopted in 2015, use of wood-burning stoves and fireplaces will be illegal as of Oct. 1, 2018, unless they are recognized by the Environment Protection Agency and emit no more than 2.5 grams of fine particles per hour into the atmosphere.
As well, homeowners have been forbidden from burning wood during smog warnings issued by Environment and Climate Change Canada.
But action has not been as decisive on commercial sources of wood smoke.
Every year, the city receives dozens of complaints about smoke from pizza restaurants, bagel bakeries and especially grilled chicken restaurants that burn wood and charcoal.
There are about 70 such commercial establishments across the island of Montreal, and together they emit an estimated 60 tonnes of fine particulate pollution into the air per year.
That makes them the fourthmost-significant emitters of fine particulate pollution on the island, after transportation (818 tonnes), wood burning in private homes (701 tonnes) and industrial sources (241 tonnes).
The closer one lives to the source of the pollution, the greater the impact on one’s health.
The city administration has known since at least 2009 that fine particles coming from chimneys of two of Montreal’s most popular wood-burning bagel shops are well above the legal limits.
Article 5.66 of Bylaw 90 states that existing wood-burning ovens cannot emit more than 100 milligrams of fine particulate per cubic metre, and new ovens are restricted to 70 mg/m3.
Over the years, the owners of the popular Fairmount and St-Viateur bagel bakeries have made efforts to reduce emissions. But information obtained by the Montreal Gazette shows that, last time city inspectors checked, these establishments were still emitting fine particles well over the allowable limits.
ST-VIATEUR BAGEL
St-Viateur’s flagship bagel bakery at 263 St-Viateur St. W. recently celebrated its 60th anniversary, to much fanfare.
The company, owned by Joe Morena and his three sons, has opened seven other bakeries on the island over the years — in PlateauMont-Royal, Nôtre-Dame-deGrâce, Dollard-des-Ormeaux, StLaurent, St-Michel and Laval — all of which have wood-burning ovens.
In 2010, emissions tests at the bakery at 158 St-Viateur St. W. showed the chimney was emitting seven to 10 times the legal limit. The city issued a warning, prompting the company to hire an engineering firm to study options.
The following year, the company switched to “eco-logs” made of compressed sawdust and wood shavings that are drier and burn more efficiently than regular hardwood. This helped reduce emissions by about 65 per cent, co-owner Nicolò Morena told the Montreal Gazette in a recent interview.
Still, last November, emissions tests showed the bakery was emitting 220.8 mg of fine particles per cubic metre, more than double the 100 mg legal limit.
At its Dollard-des- Ormeaux location, the bakery is experimenting with a custom-made hybrid oven fuelled in equal parts by gas and wood. Emissions from that oven have not yet been tested; the city tends to send inspectors only in response to complaints.
Morena says the hybrid oven produces bagels that are “just as good” as those from fully woodfired ovens — though in the next breath, he says he would be reluctant to switch to gas completely.
“It would affect the flavour of our bagel, and our tradition, our story,” he said.
After the city’s warning, Morena says the company purchased a wet scrubber from Italy that removes particles from emissions using a scrubbing liquid. But, he says, the device never worked properly.
Now the company plans to try a new filtration technology — an electrostatic precipitator, which removes fine particles using an electrostatic charge. He hopes to have that in place at the Mile End location this year.
“We are determined to solve this,” said Morena, who is handling the emissions issue for his family’s business and insists he doesn’t object to the city’s air-quality rules.
“We are in a densely populated city. As you become sensitized and become aware of things, I think it’s a good thing,” he said.
“For a while we didn’t understand … what exactly they wanted from us. We thought reducing (emissions) by almost 70 per cent would be enough. But once we understood as a family, as a business, that no, this is really important, we completely changed our focus.
“Now we are committed. It’s my mission now. I live in the area, too, so it’s my mission and challenge to get these emissions way down. I’m aiming for the 70 mg (per 100 cubic metres)."
FAIRMOUNT BAGEL
Tests by city inspectors, done in response to residents’ complaints in 2009, revealed that emissions from Fairmount Bagel were nine to 14 times the legal limit of 100 mg per cubic metre of fine particles, according to documents obtained by the Gazette.
The most recent tests, in November 2016, showed emissions were down substantially, but still over four times the limit, at 437 mg/m3.
Owner Irwin Shlafman says he has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars trying to meet the emissions requirements in recent years, and has hired an engineer who is working full time to find a solution.