INDEX PCB Digest - 2/11/02
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1) Press Release - Monday, February 11, 2002
TORIES TURNING KIRKLAND LAKE INTO TOXIC TAILPIPE
2) MPP Marilyn Churley's Statement Before Queen's Park Press Gallery
Toronto - Monday, February 11, 2002
 
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1) Press Release - February 11, 2002
 
TORIES TURNING KIRKLAND LAKE INTO TOXIC TAILPIPE
 
QUEEN'S PARK - The Conservative government is fast-tracking a little-known
plan to make the Northern community of Kirkland Lake the dioxin disposal
capital of North America, NDP Environment Critic Marilyn Churley says.
 
"First it was trash, now it's toxins. Kirkland Lake is about to become a
repository for potentially deadly chemicals and the Conservatives seem
determined to make it happen despite fierce opposition from the community,"
Churley said.
 
The incinerator, slated to be built by Vancouver-based Bennett
Environmental, will treat chemicals like PCBs, Agent Orange residue and
dioxins. The project's own developer calls dioxins "the most toxic element
known to man." The plant could bring 300,000 tonnes of toxic waste a year
from across North America to Kirkland Lake. The operation would be the
biggest of its kind in Canada.
 
The project is proceeding with little debate because of Conservative
government changes to environmental protection laws. Under the new rules, no
public hearings are required, the company doesn't need to undergo an
independent peer review and opponents of the project are unable to access
the funding they need to counter the highly-paid consultants working for the
company.
 
"The Conservatives have not learned anything from Walkerton," Churley said.
"Environmental laws aren't red tape. They keep our communities safe."
 
Churley said government approval of the incinerator would be a recipe for
public health, environmental and economic disaster in the North.
 
"Is Environment Minister Elizabeth Witmer so busy running for premier that
she can't find time to consider what it means to bring the world's most
toxic waste to an area surrounded by dairy farms?" Churley said. "This plan
must be stopped now."
 
- 30 -
 
Media inquiries: Jeffrey Ferrier (416) 325-9555/Gil Hardy (416) 325-7118/
Sheila White (416) 325-2503/Daniel Bonin (416) 325-7324
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2) MPP Marilyn Churley's Statement Before Queen's Park Press Gallery
Toronto
Monday, February 11, 2002
 
Good morning.
 
At  2:00pm this afternoon, a company called Bennett Environmental Inc. will
make a live broadcast over the internet to announce it's 4th quarter
earnings for 2002 and I believe they are expecting it to be good news.
 
I want you to know however, that Bennett Environmental Inc. is at the centre
of another story - one that poses a threat to public health in the
communities in and surrounding Kirkland Lake, Ontario.
 
This company is seeking to build a 300,000 tonne a year hazardous waste
incinerator in the town of Kirkland Lake. It will be the largest incinerator
of its kind in Canada. The incinerator will be sited in a residential area
only a few blocks from two elementary schools and a daycare centre.
 
What this company proposes to do, is to burn soils and other materials
contaminated with pcb's, dioxins, pesticides, Agent Orange residue, and
other materials. (Agent Orange was used by the US Army to defoliate the
forests and jungles of Vietnam.)
 
What are dioxins?
 
Dioxin is a general term that describes a group of highly persistent host of
chemical compounds. It is formed as a by-product of industrial process's
involving chlorine such as waste incineration. Dioxin was the primary
component of Agent Orange and was also found at the Love Canal.
 
John Bennett - the man spearheading the Kirkland Lake Incinerator plan
described dioxins this way when he spoke to the Wall Street Transcript on
March 15, last year:  "The one [area] where we have the edge over all the
companies is dioxins, which now, after many years of research, they've
discovered is the most toxic element known to man."
 
A September 1994 US EPA report suggested there may be no safe levels of
dioxin. It's a carcinogen. Exposure to dioxins can cause severe reproductive
and developmental problems even at levels 100 times below that associated
with its cancer causing effects.
 
The US Federal Department of Agriculture scientists have said the level of
dioxin in exposed animals and food products should be less than 1 part per
trillion.
 
What are PCB's?
 
PCB'S are a class of chemicals known as polychlorinated byphenals. They are
entirely man made and were fist manufactured commercially in 1929 by the
Monsanto Company. That is the same company, interestingly enough, where
Bennett Environmental's CEO John Bennett got his start as an engineer.
 
Among the health affects of PCB's are skin ailments called chloracne,
reproductive disorders, liver disease and others. PCB's are a suspected
human carcinogen and a known animal carcinogen. They are resistant to
degradation and persist for years in the environment. Furthermore, they
bio-accumulate in the food chain and are stored in the body fat of animals
and humans.
 
Because of the health and environmental risks associated with PCB's, an Act
of Congress, the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, directed the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the manufacture of PCB's and
regulated their use and disposal. EPA accomplished this by the issuance of
regulation in 1978.
 
Where will the waste come from?
 
These toxic chemicals will come to Kirkland Lake from all over Canada, the
USA and Mexico.  Here's what Bennett says: "There are very few restrictions
to crossing the borders. So we can bring waste from anywhere."
 
Where are they going to put the incinerator?
 
This incinerator - the largest of its kind in Canada - will be in the town
of Kirkland Lake on a site only 1.3 Kilometers from King George Public
School in Kirkland lake, and there is a daycare and 250 homes in an area
just over one kilometer from the site.
 
Can we trust the Environmental Assessment?
 
The supporters of this plan will tell you that in order to get a certificate
of Approval from the Ministry of Environment, the proponent will have to go
through a "full environmental assessment."
 
What they are not telling you is that thanks to the conservative government
- an E.A. in Ontario will not do, the very thing that the United States
Department of Human Health and Public Services said is a must in considering
any proposal to incinerate waste:
 
Barry Johnson, who was the Assistant Surgeon General and Assistant
Administrator to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
testifying before the US House of Representatives as long ago as 1994 said:
 
"The incineration of hazardous waste [should] be recommended only in the
context of other technologically sound remediation technologies. In other
words, the public health impact of all possible remedial technologies,
including incineration, should be assessed."
 
In Ontario our Environmental Assessment process used to require that kind of
comparative test. Under the NDP government a proponent had to show what the
alternatives were to the undertaking and for the site.
 
That was the law. But under this government, a proponent like Bennett
Environmental is no longer required to present evidence about alternatives
to his plan before an EA Panel.
 
When a proposal, similar to this, for burning PCB contaminated waste in
Bloomington Indiana came before the US Agency of Toxic substances and
diseases, that agency commissioned three panels of 40 experts and than
subjected the reports of each panel to peer review.
 
In Ontario - there will be no independent peer review. And the studies that
the EA Board will consider are studies paid for by Bennett - the company
that wants to build the incinerator.
 
In fact, the company they got to do the "Health Risk Assessment" for the
incinerator was Cantox. Cantox is the same company that did a health risk
assessment for the Frederick Street community right beside the Sydney tar
ponds and said it was safe.
 
In Ontario when an E.A. Panel asks if a project is safe - they only people
they ask are the ones who propose to build it!
 
There is no promise of full public hearings.
 
What experience do we have to assess how safe this will be?
 
The company presently operates a plant in St. Ambroise, Quebec which almost
exclusively treats U.S. waste. After only 300 days in operation, the land
around the St. Ambroise site is showing signs of contamination from dioxins,
furans, mercury and other contaminants. (Dioxin, a highly toxic substance,
appears as a byproduct during the burning of PCBs.)
 
Is the Ontario government concerned about
the people and the communities on the shipping routes?
 
We are talking about transporting 300,000 tonnes a year of toxins including
what Bennett calls "the most toxic material known to man"
 
When the city of Toronto decided to ship non-hazardous municipal waste along
highway 401 - this government went out of its way to encourage
municipalities along the route to rise up in opposition.
 
Now we're about to see the most hazardous wastes known to human-kind being
shipped from all over Canada, the United States and Mexico along our
highways and rail lines in Ontario to our pristine north?
After complaining about truck traffic to Michigan are they even asking how
many trucks will be added to our roads to ship 300,000 tonnes of highly
toxic waste from all over North America?    No.
 
How bad can it really get?
 
In 1999, the Belgian agricultural industry was devastated by a dioxin
contamination scare. A mere 40 to 50 milligrams of contamination resulted in
losses of over $3 billion (U.S.).
 
The Temiskaming region is heavily dependent on its $100 million a year dairy
and beef industry. The Temiskaming agricultural region is the largest
agricultural sector in Northern Ontario and the only agricultural region in
the province that is growing.
 
This past January, Dr. Paul Connett, a professor of chemistry at St.
Lawrence University, New York State, travelled to the Kirkland Lake area to
explain the dioxin threat to Temiskaming farmers:
 
"In one day a cow puts into its body as much dioxin as a human would breath
in 14 years and then, delivers this dioxin back to humans. The last place
you should put an incinerator is where you have any agriculture. 30
kilometers is not a long distance from an incinerator. Dioxin travels
thousand of kilometers."
 
"Toxic Waste Flows to the Jurisdiction With the Lowest Standards"
 
Dr. Neil Carman, a former incinerator inspector for the State of Austin
Texas, delivered a bleak message to Kirkland Lake residents at a public
forum in early January. Carman warned residents that the "Ontario government
is permitting an environmental sacrifice zone" --  a sacrifice zone for all
of North America.
 
 
 
Conclusion:
 
* In the absence of a meaningful Environmental Assessment process in
Ontario - there is little choice left but to fight to stop this from going
ahead. That's what the local citizens are doing and the NDP is here to
support them.
*
* The Conservatives obviously didn't learn anything from the Adams
Mine debate. I don't know why they are hell bent on making the north a
toxic waste dump, but they are.
*
* At the end of the day if this proposal has any support it is not
because it has been proven to be safe - it is because it is being dangled
before a community that is desperate for jobs.  But one has to ask - would
you want a member of your family, your son or daughter to work on a job like
this - handling the most toxic substance know to human kind?
*
* Is this government so bereft of original economic development ideas
for the North that they must keep returning to their one-note opera "Turn
the north into a garbage dump?
*
* Once given the facts, the citizens of Toronto showed the good sense
to oppose the Adams Mine plan and I predict the citizens of all Ontario will
do the same about this dangerous idea.
*
* The government of Ontario may not have learned anything from
Walkerton, but the voters of this province have.
*
* We challenge the government to stop and listen, and we challenge the
local Liberal MP and MPP to do the same.  Stop and listen before it is too
late.
 
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