Concerned citizens of Frederick Street in Sydney's Whitney Pier have a new moniker - the "six-pack."Concerned citizens of Frederick Street in Sydney's Whitney Pier have a new moniker - the "six-pack."
The tight group was so dubbed by CTV's newsmagazine W5 during a piece the show aired on their plight Tuesday evening.
Ron and Debbie McDonald and Louise Desveaux gathered at Juanita McKenzie's home to watch the episode, along with the McDonalds' young son, Ron Jr. Missing from the group were Juanita's husband Rick, who is in Ontario visiting family, and Debbie Ouellette, who was unable to attend due to illness.
Reporter Wei Chen, producer Maxine Crook and their crew spent about five days in Cape Breton and Halifax in August filming the segment, which featured interviews with the residents and government officials, along with many disturbing images of contamination.
"They said they wanted to do it from our perspective - of fighting the government and fighting the community to support us," said McKenzie before the segment aired.
The residents weren't disappointed.
McKenzie's telephone started ringing immediately after the piece ended.
"It was very powerful," she told a caller. "They got the most important stuff in there."
The W5 crew was in Cape Breton when the group was told by the province's chief medical officer, Dr. Jeff Scott, that the situation on the street posed no immediate threat to their health, although they had been complaining of everything from sore throats to kidney infections since early spring, when a toxic yellow substance was discovered oozing from a brook bank near the street.
During an on-camera interview with Scott, Chen asked him why, if there was no immediate health risk, the "human health hazard" signs posted on fences near the residents' homes weren't removed.
Scott told her it was his "understanding" that the contamination stopped at the fence.
The "six-pack" thinks that's laughable.
That's the second time he's made a fool of himself by saying the stuff stops at the fence," Ron McDonald said.
The residents, who have been asking the government to relocate them, say their next step will be a legal one. They plan to meet later this week with a representative of their Halifax lawyer, Rocky Jones, to decide how to proceed.
In the provincial legislature Tuesday, Tory leader John Hamm presented a resolution aimed at forcing the premier to fully disclose what his government intends to do to help the residents resolve the "toxic nightmare and public health hazard" on Frederick Street.
Frederick Street borders the north side of the former coke ovens site, part of the , which includes the sydney tar ponds, containing nearly 700,000 tonnes of toxic sludge created by nearly a century of steelmaking.
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