Northern Daily News
Tuesday, January 8, 2002
Page 3
 
Project considered a threat
 
Note: There is a major error in the article. This article is about Dr. Paul Connett NOT Dr. Neil Carmen (correct spelling is Carman).
 
Kirkland Lake:
 
Dr. Neil Carmen, an expert brought in by Public Concern Timiskaming; told an information session Saturday that the time to stop the Bennett proposal is now.
 
He said it has to be nipped in the bud before it moves from the democratic process to the bureaucratic process. Carmen sees the proposed soil treatment facility as being a threat to agriculture and to the native population which eats wildlife.
 
If the plant is built, Carmen warned, this host community will take on all liabilities in this regard.
 
"Everyone wants economic development and if this was genuine economic development, there would be competition for it. The competition is to keep it away. Nobody wants them," he said.
 
Carmen described the jobs at the facility as dirty jobs, where workers will be working in fugitive emissions. In terms of the threat to agriculture, Carmen said it doesn't have to be real - it only has to be perceived.
 
"What this (the Bennett proposal) represents is an end to economic development...we are so desperate that we are willing to take on an industry that no one else wants," said Carmen.
 
The university professor said consultants who work for companies work "backwards" to get the numbers the company wants.
 
Noting that the company "will promise the moon", Carmen asked who will monitor it now that the Ministry of Environment has been decimated?
 
The biggest exposure to dioxins is through food, Carmen said, and the human body can't get rid of it so it accumulates in the system. The last place an incinerator should be build is in an agricultural area, he advised.
 
Women can get rid of dioxins by passing them to babies during fetal development, added Carmen.
 
He said that if the community gets up in arms, they can stop the Bennett proposal, as this was proven during the Adams Mine issue.