Tar ponds rep charges $7,000 a month
Taxpayers pick up the tab for Nova Scotia spokesman

HALIFAX (CP) - A new communications worker hired by the Nova Scotia government to deal with the controversial tar pond's cleanup will cost taxpayers $7,080 per month - an amount the Opposition says is a waste.

Parker Donham, a former newspaper, television and online columnist, was hired last month to be the chief spokesman for the government's effort to clean up the 700,000 tonnes of toxic steelmaking sludge in Sydney, N.S.

Details of his six-month contract with the province's Sydney Tar Ponds Agency, worth $42,800, were obtained under Freedom of Information legislation. The cost includes travel and telephone expenses.

The Opposition New Democrats say the hiring is redundant as the government already has communications workers in the various departments involved in the cleanup - Health, Environment and Labour, and Transportation and Public Works. There is also a central communications agency for the government, Communications Nova Scotia.

"It seems that any time this government gets into a public debate with anybody, they don't try to resolve the issue, they go and say `Let's hire the best people we can to go and spin this for us,' " said Frank Corbett, the NDP's critic for the cleanup.

Environmental groups have called the tar ponds the worst toxic waste site in Canada, and the provincial and federal governments have been criticized by Sydney residents who say the sludge cleanup has been unduly delayed.

A report, released by the two governments in December, said PCBs and other toxins in the runoff do not pose a danger to nearby residents. But some say they don't trust the findings and will continue their demand to be relocated.

This continuing public debate requires a communications worker designated specifically for the issues surrounding the cleanup, the Nova Scotia government says.

"To have a point person whose whole job, his existence, is simply to look after that problem, it's the best step we ever made," said Ron Russell, the minister of transportation and public works.

Information on the communications contract shows that, despite the salary, Donham will not necessarily be on the job full-time.

The contract was made with a public relations agency Donham has set up with two others, although the bulk of the work will be done by Donham himself. The contract acknowledges that Donham has other clients that will demand his time, but the government has first call on his services.

The contract also forbids Donham, who has been critical of the tar ponds cleanup in the past, from commenting on "policy issues even tangentially related to the work of the Sydney Tar Ponds Agency."

Donham, who last May urged readers of an online column to protest government inaction by mailing Mason jars filled with tar ponds sludge to members of federal and provincial legislatures, says things have changed.

"I'm coming along at a time when a corner has been turned on this project," said Donham, who lives in rural Cape Breton. "Work is well underway on it and new milestones are going to start coming fast and furious."

"The old Sydney landfill (whose watery runoff reaches the tar ponds) has been completely recontoured and capped with clay. It's been encircled with canals to entrap leachate."

Donham also points out his columns were also critical of some of the critics of the tar ponds cleanup, including one column on a book on the tar ponds written by Maude Barlow and Elizabeth May in 2000.

"(It) was quite critical of the book for it being overly-harsh on the people pursuing the cleanup."

The Nova Scotia government is now working on cleaning up dozens of properties where soil tests revealed contaminant levels above recommended guidelines.

Instead of relocating residents, provincial officials say the problems can be fixed by removing soil, cleaning basements, and removing contaminants from sump drains.