Proof of toxins sounds alarm
By TERA CAMUS
Cape Breton Bureau 

Whitney Pier
    Frederick Street residents begged for help again Thursday after findings from a new Environment Canada test reconfirmed unacceptable levels of several toxins.
    "We have the proof we are living on a contaminated street," a shaken Juanita McKenzie said Thursday near her Whitney Pier home.  "We feel that we should not be subjected to the health hazards that we know are here while the government does further testing and anaylsis of our bodies to find out long-term and short-term effects of these dangerous toxins."
    Those new tests are now being done by the federal and provincial Health Departments and results should be available by mid-August.
    Cantox Environmental Inc. has been hired to conduct a full health assessment.  Workers walked the neighborhood Wednesday to survey residents just after they received the latest results from Environment Canada soil and water tests.
    The 150-page document pinpoints higher than acceptable levels of a variety of toxins.
    The brook on lower Frederick Street contains arsenic levels 13 times higher than guidelines from the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.  The first test results measured 18 times higher.
    The heavy metal antimony was measured at 3.7 times above acceptable limits while molybdenum and bensopyrene were six times higher than acceptable.
    The railbed is contaminating the brook upstream, which has 2.3 times the acceptable limit of benzopyrene for residential property, 1.6 times the acceptable level of napthalene, and two to three times more of other polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) than is acceptable.
    The soil samples also revealed higher than normal levels of lead, copper, molybdenum, napthalene and other PAHs.
    Dr. Jeff Scott, chief medical officer for the province, issued a news release Wednesday.
    "Based on the test results so far, we do not believe the residents are at risk," he said.  "We will, however, continue our work.  Blood and hair samples from many of the residents are being tested, with the results expected shortly."
    That response angered residents.  "With all the toxins that have been found ... you can't say there's no health hazard," Ms. McKenzie said.
    "How do we know which chemical is going to do what to us?"
    "The residents called upon politicians and others in the community to speak up.  "We do not wish the street to be the death of us or our children.  Please, someone out there help us."
    The residents, who found a yellow ooze near the Frederick Street brook three months ago, also reaffirmed their demand.
    "Relocation is the only acceptable option for the residents of Frederick Street," she said.
    Dan Yakemchuck, chairman of Help CB, a new environmental group, agreed.
    "We support that.  The average citizens in the area are affected, not only on Frederick Street but everybody is affected.  The brook and the tar ponds runs through the middle of the city.
    "It's a national disgrace."
    But Environmenta Canada says moving people out of the contaminated area is not its job.  Spokesman Wayne Pearce says the department's mandate is to protect land and animals, not people.
    Mr. Pearce said the Environment Department is not going to clean up the land or water anytime soon.
    "We can't really run in there now and start remediating this area.  We really don't have enough information and it's part of a bigger picture.  We're following the process the CCME has set down for contaminated sites."

Please support the residents of Frederick Street
and Contact Nova Scotia's
PREMIER RUSSELL MacLELLAN
 
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