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Follow-up petition on clean up of the Sydney Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens

Petition

June 5, 2006

Sheila Fraser Auditor General of Canada
Ottawa

Re: Possible financial improprieties in Sydney NS

Dear Auditor General:

We recently made a presentation to the Joint Panel Review Hearings in Sydney, NS on behalf of Cape Breton Save Our Healthcare and in opposition to the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency (STPA), the Proponent. The STPA have refused to release figures on costs for the Project except in rather general terms. The STPA is resolutely supporting incineration and encapsulation of the waste. Most of the presenters, including the chief medical oncologist Dr. Ron MacCormick and ourselves have opposed the proposed incinerator on health grounds. The Joint Panel Review presently underway is to hear the evidence and decide if an EIS can be written. A figure of $500 million has been rumored.

On Monday May 8, 2006 we heard a presentation from an American group called Kippin Industries who offered another proven technology, spherical agglomeration and a fixed price cost of about $189 million US+~10 percent cost insurance cap. STPA evaluated part of their technology and decided against them. The technology has evolved since then to include a synthetic fuel recovery phase, which offsets a great deal of the costs. The detrimental environmental contamination of incineration will not be present. The following day May 9, 2006 Frank Potter A/CEO STPA was heard on local radio with the message that it was "too late to make a change". This is patently ridiculous because the purpose of the Joint Panel Hearing is to investigate if sufficient information is available to write an EIS.

On the evening of May 10, 2006 an electrifying rumor swept the meeting room that the contracts for the remediation have already been signed. We learned of it from unusually reliable sources. If this were true the effect would be to render null and void the magnificent work of the Panel and a substantial portion of the community. Dr. MacCormick made the case for the presence of considerable social stress within the community largely due to the prospect of an incinerator renewing the fears the community experienced when the Coke Oven operated. He views this as an adverse force on human health with which I concur.

My question to you the Auditor General of Canada is to ask if the acts and regulation under which the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency, an agency of the Nova Scotia Government, operates permit the A/CEO to sign binding contracts with parties unnamed to remediate the Sydney Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens Site before the work of the Panel is complete.

The Agency has signed contracts for preventative work that we do not question. What we do question and ask you to examine and report on is the possibility of a commitment to procure a technology that is opposed by the community and might be opposed by the Panel. It is probable that the technology will cause adverse human health effects. In our view the STPA must act with the utmost financial rectitude before during and after the Panel has reported

Will you please examine and comment as soon as possible on these matters.

Sincerely,

[Original signed by James Argo]

James Argo Ph.D. (Cantab)
IntrAmericas Centre for Environment and Health
Box 101, Wolfe Island, ON K0H2Y0 Canada
iceh@kos.net
613-385-1831 eve
613-385-1832 fax

[Original signed by Mary Ruth MacLellan]

Mary Ruth MacLellan
Cape Breton Save our Health Care
392 Phalen Road,
Glace Bay NS

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Minister's Response: Environment Canada

11 October 2006

Dear Dr. Argo and Ms. MacLellan:

I am writing to provide Environment Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's (the Agency) response to petition 140C to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, concerning the proposed Sydney Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens Sites remediation project. Your petition was received in the Department on June 14.

In the intervening period since the submission of your petition, the Joint Panel Review released its findings report, entitled Joint Review Panel Environmental Assessment Report, on July 13. An electronic version of the report may be found at http://www.gov.ns.ca/enla/ea/tarponds.asp.

The Government of Canada will be responding officially to the Joint Panel Report through an order in council later this year. In doing so, we will work with the Province of Nova Scotia in considering the advice of the Joint Panel prior to any decisions and commitments on procurement of particular technologies for the main remediation project.

I am confident that through the Government of Canada's approach, our common goal of remediating the Sydney Tar Ponds site will be met in a responsible manner.

Yours sincerely,

[Original signed by Rona Ambrose, Minister of the Environment]

Rona Ambrose

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Minister's Response: Public Works and Government Services Canada

20 October 2006

Ms. Mary-Ruth MacLellan
Cape Breton Save our Health Care
391 Phalen Road
Glace Bay, Nova Scotia
B1A 3B6

James Argo, Ph.D.
IntrAmericas Centre for Environment and Health
Box 101
Wolfe Island, Ontario
K0H 2Y0

Dear Ms. MacLellan:

I am writing to provide my department's response to your environmental petition of June 5, 2006, submitted to the Commissioner for the Environment and Sustainable Development on June 14, 2006, concerning the Sydney Tar Ponds and Coke Ovens Sites Remediation Project. Your petition was also submitted to my colleague the Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of the Environment.

In the intervening period since the submission of your petition, the Joint Panel Review released, on July 13, 2006, a report on its findings entitled Joint Review Panel Environmental Assessment Report. You can visit http://www.gov.ns.ca/enla/ea/tarponds.asp for further details.

We will work with the Government of Nova Scotia in considering the advice of the Joint Panel, prior to any decisions and commitments on procurement of particular technologies for the main clean up. Accordingly, we confirm that no contracts have been signed which commit the federal and provincial governments to a particular course of action before decisions are made and announced as a result of the governments' consideration of the advice of the Joint Panel. 

I am confident that through the Government of Canada's approach, our common goal of cleaning up the Sydney Tar Ponds site will be completed in a responsible manner.

Yours sincerely,

[Original signed by Michael M. Fortier, Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Michael M. Fortier