Conflicts over where to put toxic sludge boxes Clean up boat harbor

Where do you put half a million tons of toxic sludge?

The Pictou Landing First Nation doesn’t want half a century of accumulated Northern Pulp and Canso Chemicals pollution in their backyard.

Build Nova Scotia, the county agency in charge of cleaning up the former Boat Harbor Effluent Treatment Facility wants to drain/treat the water from it, place the sludge on site in an expanded containment cell and seal it.

While the two appear to be at an impasse, the federal environmental assessment for cleaning up the county’s most contaminated site is stalling and what was originally predicted to be a $300 million price tag goes north.

“(Pictou Landing First Nation) has notified the Agency and its proponent that they do not support the use of the existing containment cell as a permanent storage facility for the remediated materials,” reads an information request from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to Two Years ago Nova Scotia built.

“PLFN owns a 29.14 hectare plot, about seven kilometers west of New Glasgow. PLFN identified this plot as a possible alternative location for the containment cell and provided this information to the proponent for review.

While the agency did not identify the land parcel, a search of property records by The Chronicle Herald shows that a development company associated with Pictou Landing took ownership of a 29.14-acre parcel about seven kilometers west of New Glasgow last year. on Granton Abercrombie Road.

The lot is one of two adjacent PLFN ELUKUTIEK GP lots that are directly opposite the SPCA’s Pictou Shelter.

The Pictou Landing First Nation did not respond to a request for comment.

According to the project summary initially submitted by Build Nova Scotia, there is about a million cubic feet of accumulated polluted sludge that they would collect from Boat Harbor, drain and treat the water from.

Once dried, it shrinks to between 312,500 and 517,700 cubic meters of “sludge affected by metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dioxins/furans (D&F).”

That is between 31,000 and 51,000 dump truck loads.

The Pictou Landing First Nation has been forced to live next to pollution they didn’t want for half a century.

But does anyone else want it next door?

Residents of the Granton Abercrombie Road contacted by The Chronicle Herald said neither the Pictou Landing First Nation nor the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada had notified them of the proposal.

“I think we should be consulted,” says Fred Barkhouse, who lives about a mile from the lot.

“Why would you want that contaminated sludge next to you?”

According to Build Nova Scotia, it has responded to all more than 100 requests for information from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada, except those about sending the sludge elsewhere.

That information request (IR82) from the federal agency requires Build Nova Scotia: “Provide an analysis of the technical and economic feasibility of the alternative containment cell site proposed by PLFN. The analysis should consider factors such as environmental impacts, costs, regulatory requirements, timing, risks, public concerns and impacts on PLFN. Sufficient information should be provided to support any assumptions or conclusions in the analysis. Provide PLFN with the opportunity to comment on the analysis and clearly show how comments were handled.”

Asked if they had a position on where the sludge is going, Build Nova Scotia responded in writing with, “This position will be addressed in the response to Information Requirement 82 when it is formally submitted to and accepted by IAAC. Please note that IR82 requires feedback from PLFN.”

Build Nova Scotia has not said when they will respond to IR82, which was received more than two years ago.

Build Nova Scotia submitted its project application in 2019 and last year faced the expiration of the three-year statutory deadline for its federal environmental assessment process.

In its application for an extension last year, Build Nova Scotia accused the federal regulator of rarely involving it in talks with the Pictou Landing First Nation about its environmental assessment and expressed concern about not being involved in talks about finding another location for the Boat Harbor sludge.

“We were informed that these meetings (between the Impact Assessment Agency and Pictou Landing) were for discussions about the environmental assessment process only,” reads a letter signed by Ken Swain, project leader of the Boat Harbor Remediation Project.

“However, in 2021 it became clear that there was a lot of discussion and involvement around the issue, which led to the development of IR82 (the request to find another location for sludge). It is clear that there was a discussion between IAAC and PLFN about an important project component alternative in the absence of the proponent.

The letter goes on to criticize the impact assessment agency for sending round after round (four in total so far) of requests for information, each requiring further investigation, without giving a timetable for when the questions will stop coming.

“This concern may be compounded by the fact that while the Agency (requests for information) is placed on the public record, none of the proponents’ responses are posted,” Swain’s letter said.

“Given the current economic climate, the proponent and its government stakeholders recognize the cost escalation attributable to delayed project implementation pending an environmental assessment decision and the associated impact it has on future taxpayer spending. The advocate should at least understand an outline of the next steps.

Canada’s impact assessment agency eventually approved the extension request through 2024, but it made no commitment as to when the information requests would stop coming.

The project cost taxpayers, both federal and provincial, an estimated $300 million in 2019 when the county first filed its environmental filing.

With that number growing, Canada’s impact assessment agency will not provide an estimate of when it will stop ordering new information requests.

Only when these requests stop coming in can the environmental assessment process continue.

“The Agency awaits the full response from the submitter to the Request for Information 82 which includes the technical evaluation of an alternative landfill site and the opinion of Pictou Landing First Nation on this evaluation,” reads a written response from the Impact Assessment Agency to The Chronicle. . Herald questions.

“The time that the initiator needs to complete his work or provide information is not included in the time frame within which the minister must issue a statement of decision on the project. During this time, the timeline will be paused.”

If and when the project is approved, Build Nova Scotia expects it to take four to seven years. However, that was on the assumption that the sludge was contained on site.