Coke Ovens coal tar oil either hazardous or not
Letter to editor from Charles H. Andrews
Cape Breton Post
Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2003
It was with great interest that I
read about the removal of coal tar
oil from the coke ovens site. We are
told 1,000 tonnes of coal tar oil is
going to be hauled in 30 truck loads
over our Trans-Canada Highway to
Montreal.
A newspaper article also pointed
out the many uses for this coal tar
oil. Apparently this product is all
around us in auto tires,in drive
way sealants, in roofing compounds
such as shingles, tar paper and coatings,
as well as in pharmaceutical
paints and cosmetics.
Well, I am certainly baffled by
this whole thing! I cannot figure out
if this coal tar is a toxic material or
not.
If it was not toxic, just why was it
necessary to spend so much time
and money to enclose the Domtar
tank just to remove material similar
to what is being spread around us in
numerous everyday products?
If it is a toxic material, just why
is it being hauled on our highway
where it has every chance of being
involved in a toxic spill, resulting in
an environmental disaster, when we
could have easily shipped this material
by the Cape Breton railroad that
we are so desperately trying to save?
Lastly if this material is so readily
present in products used everyday,
why is it being hauled to Montreal
to be incinerated and
destroyed? This raw material alone
must be worth $300,000 or more to
industries that use it in their products,
and this money should be
returned to offset the cleanup costs
for the mess in our midst.
When one looks to the rationale
of this whole project, one could
readily conclude that something
smells here - and it is not just the
coal tar.
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