• AERIAL PHOTO shows proposed site of ferrochromium smelter near Port Hardy.
Island residents demand answers on PL Hardy ferrochromium plant
By KATE BRAUER
Several hundred people turned out last month to meetings in Port Hardy. Fort Rupert. Alert Bay. Sointula and Port McNeill to express concern about a proposed ferrochromium smelter near Port Hardy.
These "scoping" meetings were set up to give the public a chance to identify issues that should be covered in an upcoming review of the project. A review panel was named at the beginning of the year to conduct an environmental review under the powers of the B.C. Environment Management Act. It will investigate issues and hold public hearings over the next two months.
The panel opened the scoping meetings with a preliminary list of 37 issue areas including environmental concerns, environ-
mental control technology and various social, economic and cultural considerations.
Public input from the meetings has produced a list of over 100 issues that the project developer. Sherwood Corp., must address. Now added to the list are critical issues such as:
• the value of the salmon, other fish and harvested marine food resources, including the effects on migrating species;
• the preservation of the quality of the environment and the way of life in the region;
• thermal effects of cooling water:
• chromium loading of the environment;
• monitoring networks.
The UFAWU is particularly concerned because the proposed site where the plant is to be built is a major migratory route for
Fraser River bound salmon. Both mature fish and smolts could be seriously affected by changes in water temperature or water quality.
Further issues may be identified at any time during the review process and the review panel welcomes input from any interested parties. The panel can accept evidence voiced at public hearings, generated by experts or brought forth by legal means.
All materials presented to the panel are available to the public at a variety of locations: the libraries of the North Island College at Port Hardy. Port McNeill, Alert Bay and Sointula; the government agent's office and the public library in Port Hardy; the Nanaimo Regional Library; the Victoria Public Library; and the West Coast Enviromental Law Assoc. in Vancouver.
• EIGHTY THOUSAND MARCHED in Vancouver as the annual Peace Walk (left) combined With Earth Day celebrations to target global peace and survival of the environment. UFAWU member Al Brown adds his boat (right) to a flotilla that paralleled the march off shore. A similar walk in Victoria brought out 15,000.
Labour, environmental coalition sets pulp pollution conference
By ARNIE THOMLINSON
Labour and public interest groups, angered and outraged at government inaction against pulp mill polluters, are organizing a conference to plan corrective strategy and action.
Key members of the Pulp Pollution Coalition and the Pulp Pollution Campaign met May 9 to assess the federal and provincial governments' responses to the pulp pollution crisis. All agreed that B.C. environment minister John Reynolds has done little, despite bold-sounding promises.
Meanwhile, he is informally telling members of his hand-picked Round Table on the Environment that the promised tough pulp mill regulations need to be less stringent. Labour and environmental organizations see this as a major retreat from the popu-
lar demand for the elimination of all organochlorines from pulp mill effluent.
Reynolds' waffling on the pulp pollution issue is rivalled by his federal counterpart, Lucien Bouchard. Bouchard's new draft federal pulp mill regulations say dioxins and furans must be reduced to less than "measurable concentrations" by 1994. But he refuses to have these highly toxic chemical eliminated altogether.
Moreover, the draft regulations ignore hundreds of other deadly organochlorines, some possibly more dangerous than dioxins as a threat to the health of shellfish, finfish and humans. The UFAWU has denounced the draft regulations and is continuing to press for zero discharge of all organochlorines.
Representatives of Greenpeace, Save Howe Sound Society, the
Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada and the UFAWU have targeted a number of issues needing immediate government action including:
• toxic air emissions and the poisoning of soil and groundwater by solid wastes;
• a rash of accidents, including spills of process chemicals, hydraulic oil and possible PCB-laden oil from an exploding transformer;
• huge quantities of wood fibre routinely "lost," smothering fish habitat and suffocating sea life;
• habitat clean-up and rehabilitation.
These items will take priority as the Coalition finalizes the agenda for the Pulp Pollution Conference scheduled for June 9 and 10 at the Maritime Labour Centre.
Pesticide spraying opposed for Skeena
By JIM RUSHTON
Fish workers and native groups in the north are asking why Canadian National should be allowed to put more deadly chemicals in the environment when there is no demonstrated need.
UFAWU Local 31 has appealed CN's application to spray its right of way from Smithers to Prince Rupert with toxic pesticides. The appeal hearing took place in Smithers in April.
CN had hoped to begin its spray program in 1989 but were stopped by a court injunction obtained by the Kitsum Kalum band.
Public pressure made the process a measured success even before the hearing started. CN announced at the opening of the hearing it was dropping two of the most offensive chemicals from their application. Spike and Simmaprin.
CN built their argument around two issues: the need for railway safety and the fact that the chemicals were registered and legal.
But during cross examination CN admitted that over one hundred kilometers of track between Smithers and Prince Rupert
would not be sprayed because the Pesticide Control Branch thought there would clearly be an environmental hazard. CN also testified that this would result in no safety concern on the railway.
This brings out two points: first, there is no real safety concern, and second, there is real environmental concern. The CN witness stated the real issue was economics.
On the issue of the registration of pesticides, witness after witness stated they had no faith in the registration process. Past experience has demonstrated the unreliability of this process to protect the public interest.
We do not know what the appeal panel will decide, but clearly it is time for new laws and criteria for the use of pesticides. In this case there is no reason to grant the application for unnecessary spraying.
The irony of this case is that industry often justifies environmentally unsound policies in the name of preserving jobs. Here, CN is explaining their environmentally unsound policies by citing the need to reduce costs and reduce jobs.
Aerial spray appeal loses in Bella Coola
BELLA COOLA - International Forest Products has won a controversial pesticide appeal, allowing the company to go ahead with aerial pesticide spraying in the sensitive Kwatna watershed.
Bella Coola resident Kevin O'Neill, backed by UFAWU Bella Coola Local 27, had appealed the spraying, demanding that the pesticide be applied from the ground by methods less likely to affect the watershed and its salmon runs.
He argued at the January appeal hearing that the B.C. Coastal Fisheries Forestry Guidelines restrict aerial spraying to those areas where ground
based spraying is not practical. He said the onus is on Interior to prove that aerial spraying is necessary, not simply that it's cheaper or easier.
He told the appeal board that the Nuxalk Nation has a manual brushing and weeding crew carrying out silvaculture projects in the area and their crews have no problem doing ground based work on similar terrain. As such, Interior should be able to spray using ground crews as well.
O'Neill lost the appeal, but he is not giving up. He is now taking the issue straight to the provincial cabinet asking for the guidelines to be strictly interpreted and the watershed protected.
Dioxins and furans found in Kamloops Lake rainbow trout
Dioxins and furans found in Kamloops Lake trout have local area residents demanding action from senior governments to get tough with polluters.
Health and Welfare Canada warned anglers at the end of April to limit consumption of Dolly Varden and rainbow trout from Kamloops lake and the Thompson River because of traces of toxins found in the fish. The trout was taken from the Thompson River and Kamloops lake, but the problem may well be more widespread.
Dioxins and furans, most commonly a by-product of the pulp mill bleaching process, have been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
People have been told to eat less than 235 grams of Dolly Varden or 33 grams of rainbow trout a week.
Representatives of the 3.000 area natives, sports fishermen and concerned citizens are asking for an immediate meeting with the federal and provincial environment ministers to get action on the problem.
COLUMBIA CELLULOSE on Watson Is. near mouth of the Skeena.
THE FISHERMAN / MAY 14, 1990 • 9