INDEX PCB Digest - 2/14/02
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1) Temiskaming Speaker - 1/13/02 - Page 17b
Bennett proposal needs further studying, Haileybury
council advises
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1) Temiskaming Speaker - 1/13/02 - Page 17b
Bennett proposal needs further studying, Haileybury
council advises
Darlene Wroe
Speaker Reporter
HAILEYBURY -
Haileybury council has received a number of
recommendations from one of its residents regarding steps to be taken
on the Bennett Environmental Inc. (BEl) proposal to build a thermal
oxidizer facility in Kirkland Lake.
The facility would be able to burn solid materials
such as soil, dredgings, wood, steel, packaging, and activated carbon
residual. The material might be contaminated with: pesticides,
herbicides, fungicides, wood preservatives, polychlorinated biphenyl
(PCB), pentachlorophenol (PCP), polychlorinated dibenzo furan (PCDF),
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAR), polychlorinated dibenzodioxin
(PCDD), trichloroethylene (TCE), coal tars, creosote.
At its regular meeting of council on Tuesday evening,
January 22, council received a presentation from Stan Gorzalczynski,
a mechanical technologist who makes studying environmental science
his hobby.
Mr. Gorzalczynski has reviewed a draft environmental
assessment by BEl and has summarized it.
He is recommending to council that: "based on the
enormous economic contribution made by the agricultural industry
(estimated to be $100 million annually) in the Temiskaming district,
this council should support the concerns raised by the Temiskaming
Federation of Agriculture and work to ensuring that this important,
existing landuse activity is protected from any adverse impacts
stemming from the BEl facility."'
Mr. Gorzalczynski also recommends that council should:
"ensure that baseline data collection, monitoring plans and
follow up actions are completed and clearly documented in the final
Environmental Assessment submission by BEl so that a repeat of the
Quebec situation does not occur in this area."
BEl runs a similar but smaller facility in Saint
Ambroise, Quebec. He stated that "BEI is presently being accused
by the Quebec Ministry of Health of contributing to the elevated
levels of heavy metals, dioxins and furans being measured in the
soils around the BEI facility. BEI is countering this accusation with
its own studies. The key point in this situation is that the BEI
facility's contribution to these soil contaminant loads cannot be
confirmed as BEI did not collect any baseline data during their
environmental assessment of the Quebec facility."
BEI has stated that test burns at its plant in Quebec
show that emissions of PCBs as well as dioxins and furans are well
below limits.
'UNBIASED PEER REVIEW MUST BE DONE'
Council also was advised that: "an unbiased peer
review of the Environmental Assessment must be done. Under present
conditions, the only way this council can ask for that to be done is
through a full environmental assessment hearing under the direction
of the Environmental Assessment Review Board."
Mr. Gorzalcynski also suggested that: "the
Environmental Assessment done to date is not a full environmental
assessment. This council should be asking BEI to consider running
parallel environmental assessments for both 'fixed' incineration
facilities and 'mobile' incineration facilities. After all, the
majority of reference data being quoted by Bennett's primary
consultant, Mills Consulting Inc., stems from a mobile incinerator
used in Smithville, Ontario, to clean up a heavily contaminated
polychlorinated biphenyl site."
It is anticipated the formal environmental assessment
document will be prepared within about three weeks, and with time it
will be circulated for comment.
Mr. Gorzalczynski outlined the benefits of cleaning
contaminated materials. "Air monitoring stations in North
America are detecting the presence of certain contaminants in areas
where no recorded usage of these contaminants exists. The areas most
affected by this phenomenon are high latitude areas such as northern
Canada. Present theory recognizes basic convective air movement
patterns in our atmosphere as the mechanism for this build up of
contaminants in seemingly pristine wilderness. Air is heated in the
southern latitudes, it rises with a vapourized contaminant load and
moves toward northern latitudes where it cools and drops back to the
Earth's surface releasing the contaminants through precipitation. A
well documented example of this mechanism is acid rain."
GREAT LAKES
He also stated that: "With regard to
polychlorinated biphenyls, the Great Lakes receive approximately 280
kilograms a year of this contaminant through the atmospheric
deposition process. To compare this quantity to the release of
polychlorinated biphenyls from a facility such as the Bennett
Environmental Inc. proposal, only 0.05 kilograms a year are released
to the surrounding environment. This is an approximate output
reduction in excess of 5,000 times. The net result of this
uncontrolled release of contaminants is reduced human health. In the
time period between 1952 and 1989, the following increases in cancer
related illness has been documented: breast cancer 50 per cent
increase, pancreatic cancer 120 per cent increase, and testicular
cancer 140 per cent increase."
He stated that the BEI proposal would contribute
approximately $8 million annually to the Kirkland Lake economy
through payroll, transportation costs, operating expenses and taxation.
Bennett Environmental Inc. would also establish a
community development fund whereby $10 from every ton processed at
the facility would be directed to the community of Kirkland Lake for
industrial d development and social and cultural programs.
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