One of our readers asked, has Tolko installed a new smokestack?

-According to Tolko's Merritt plant manager Clayton Storey, the answer is a resounding "no", though looks may be deceiving.

"The blower system was upgraded last summer but the functionality has not changed," he says.

The blower draws up the debris, dust, and hot air from Tolko's planer and creates a cyclone inside a vertical tube which forces out the waste.

Storey says that, depending on the quality of the wood planed and air temperature inside and outside, "It will appear at times to have something coming out."

That vertical tube was extended as part of last year's upgrades but the blower operates the same as it did when first installed, he says.

The tube is unrelated to the Merritt Green Energy Project, a biomass plant that will be built on the Tolko site, which will include a 45-metre-high stack.

Storey says there has been no construction on that project yet.