Thursday, July
30, 1998
Milestone agreement reached in
JAG roundtable
BY LAUREL MUNROE
Cape Breton Post
A milestone
in the proposed cleanup of the area was reached
Wednesday.
A formal Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU), committing the federal, provincial and municipal
governments and the Cape Breton community - as represented by the Joint
Action Group (JAG) - to the cleanup was ratified by the JAG roundtable
during a meeting held at the Steelworkers Hall in Sydney.
The MOU, which
was more than a year in the making, expresses the will of the parties to
seek solutions, through the JAG process, to the environmental and health
risks associated with the , which contains Canada's
worst contaminated sites, including the Sydney tar ponds.
The five-year
agreement limits the cleanup to the tar ponds, former coke ovens site,
coke ovens brook and adjacent sites, including inflows and outflows of
the watershed area.
Some roundtable
members were concerned that the cleanup site as outlined in the agreement
is too limited, as Sydney harbor, the municipal landfill and the streets
adjacent to the site are not included in JAG's mandate under the MOU.
Elizabeth
may put forward a motion that the words "at a minimum" be added to the
site description, but the motion was defeated after the federal government
representative, Don Ferguson of Health Canada, told the roundtable the
government would be forced to rescind its immediate support of the MOU,
"until legal counsel were consulted."
"the wording
that's in there gives us the flexibility to deal with the problems we need
to," noted JAG member John MacMullin.
After more
than 90 minutes of discussion, a motion to forward the MOU to JAG's partners
for consideration was passed by a vote of 27 for and three against, with
two abstentions.
"i'm very
pleased," said JAG chair Dr. Carl Buchanan. "It puts into context
our actions as to how we remediate the site, and we need that in place
before each project is costed and can move ahead."
The MOU, which
does not establish legally binding obligations among the parties, does
not establish a framework for funding, either.
"We'll operate
in good faith to try to determine the cost of funding on a project-by-project
basis," said Buchanan. "The context of the MOU makes sure we have
an opportunity to negotiate."
Buchanan noted
he doesn't know what the cleanup will cost, but added he hopes the process
will create technology which can eventually be sold to other areas.
It is expected
the MOU will be signed by representatives from all teh parties sometime
in August. it is not known whether Prime Minister Jean Chretien will
attend the signing ceremony.
In other business,
the roundtable ratified a Memorandum of Association, which will allow JAG
to incorporate and purchase liability insurance.
Tar ponds plan adopted
By Tera Camus
Cape Breton Bureau
Sydney
The group
overseeing the cleanup of the nation's worst toxic site has a game plan
but no level of government is legally bound to play by the rules.
The Joint
Action Group on Environmental Cleanup adopted the four-party agreement
with a vote of 27-3 Wednesday night. Another two members abstained.
The memorandum
of agreement outlines the planned attack for the cleanup of the Sydney
tar ponds, the former coke oven site and adjacent coke ovens brook.
Chairman Bucky
Buchanan says the agreement sets up the process.
"It puts into
context all the relationships that we could identify with all the partners
- municipal, federal, provincial - with the JAG community group," he said.
The agreement
also lays the groundwork for how the site can be cleaned up, he said.
"We needed
that in place obviously before each project is costed and moved ahead."
The agreement
assumes local workers will be hired in the cleanup whenever possible and
"all parties conduct themselves in an open, communicative and cooperative
manner."
The agreement
keeps JAG involved in the tendering of work and affirms its community-based
organizational structure.
It also outlines
the plan to study and assess ways to clean up the site by March 1999.
The need for
JAG to get annual funding for administration and operational costs, as
well as cost-shared funding for the cleanup, is also noted.
The plan does
not specify what percentages each government partner will contribute or
the total amount of dollars involved.
Earlier estimates
for the cleanup were well above $500 million. The work could take
up to 25 years to complete.
Outspoken
critic Elizabeth May, a JAG member and president of the national environmental
group Sierra Club, says the agreement doesn't go far enough. She
abstained from voting Wednesday.
"It's loaded
with hedging of bets like 'Resource constraints are recognized at all levels,'
and 'This document is not a binding legal commitment of any kind,'" she
said. "So as a written moral commitment it's OK, but compared to
what it could have been, I think it's a disappointing document."
JAG hopes
various partners will sign the agreement by the end of August. Among
those to be invited are Prime Minister Jean Chretien, federal Health Minister
Allan Rock, federal Environment Minister Christine Stewart, Premier Russell
MacLellan, Health Minister Jim Smith and CB Regional Mayor David Muise.
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