Jag Members To Watch Over Cleanup
By Steve Macinnis
Cape Breton Post
Thurs., Sept. 18, 2003
Any notion by the federal or provincial governments that the
Joint Action Group would be quietly dissolved were quashed Wednesday as
the group vowed to continue watching over the cleanup of Canada's worst
toxic waste dump. While the JAG Secretariat - the seven-member
administrative arm of the community-based group - officially closes today,
the majority of members on the JAG roundtable agreed they should remain in
existence and hopefully secure a seat on a new 15-member community liaison
committee.
"I feel like we're being dismissed here. I don't think government should
ask us to bury ourselves," said JAG member John Martel.
His comment was echoed by several other members who feel too much time and
energy has been put into the project to simply walk away after the
community has offered its recommendation for the remediation of the Muggah
Creek Watershed.
Formed in 1996, JAG's mandate was to help the community better understand
the complexities of such a cleanup and offer government a recommendation
on a remediation option.
JAG has completed its task and now its government partners say its time to
move on. The government has announced they are forming a new community
committee whose members they shall select.
Unlike the JAG process, the new committee will not be open or transparent
and some JAG members like Eric Brophy feel membership will be offered to
those groups which are dependent on government funding such as the
district health authority.
"I relish this process (JAG) because at the end of the day, I expected a
cleaner and healthier community," said Brophy, who has been with the
process since 1996.
The roundtable group
includes representatives from
all three levels of government
along with residents of the
community who over the past
seven years dedicated more
than 100,000 volunteer hours
attending 915 meetings which
resulted in 130 resolutions
being presented to government.
For its part, government
coughed up over $62 million to
carry out site assessment studies
and preliminary cleanup
work. The secretariat was also
supported by all three levels of
government.
The site includes the famed
Sydney tar ponds, the coke
ovens site and a landfill which
combined create a highly toxic
mess that remains a legacy
from nearly a century of steelmaking.
Among the suceesses of
JAG was the capping of the
landfill, construction of an
interceptor sewer system to
prevent raw sewage from
being dumped on the site and
a recommendation for a
cleanup. Residents voted for a
co-burning process and soundly
rejected any on-site incineraton.
The federal and provincial
partners have yet to respond to
the recommendation.
Garth Bangay, regional
director for the federal Environment
Department, said
Wednesday, now that the
process has moved to a new
level, there is no further need
for public debate on issues surrounding
cleanup options.
He said an environment
assessment will now have to be
carried out and that process is
not subject to debate nor is the
contract that would be awarded
to the successful bidder for
the cleanup.
JAG members voted down a
motion calling for the group to
dissolve and members like Bill
Bailey and Asta Antoft offered
a glimpse of what could come
next.
"The secretariat can go but
JAG can stay as a watchdog,"
said Bailey, adding meetings
can be held in members homes
if necessary.
Antoft said it's time for the
group to reinvent itself.
"We should all know now
how government works and it
is not appropriate for us to fold
as we should still be a voice in
the community," she said.
Meanwhile, members voted
to turn over all reports and
other pertinent documents
collected over the past seven
years to the Beaton Institute
at the University College of
Cape Breton. All equipment
from the secretariat will be
turned over to the government
partners with the understanding
that what they don't
need will be returned to the
commumity.
At the end of the meeting,
there were a few tears shed
and a lot of congratulatory
remarks to members for their
work over the years.
smacinnis@cbpost..com
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