Evacuation of Frederick Street not in works
By Amy Smith / Provincial Reporter, Halifax Herald, May 1, 1999
Residents of Frederick Street in Sydney will stay put while tests are done on
yellow ooze found in a resident's basement.
Environment Minister Michel Samson said his department is taking this issue very
seriously but is not planning an evacuation right now.
"It's essential we get the proper scientific information on what this is," he said
Friday.
Environment Department inspectors took samples from Debbie Ouellette's
basement and from a brook in her backyard, and test results are expected within
10 days.
Ms. Ouellette believes the ooze is the same toxic substance found near her house
last year.
"We'll take the results and have a look at them," Mr. Samson said. "What I can
assure (Frederick Street residents) is our department is trying to identify this as
soon as possible."
But Tory Leader John Hamm said Mr. Samson isn't living up to his commitment
to make Frederick Street a priority.
"What is it going to take for the minister to demonstrate a commitment to the
health and safety of those living near the coke ovens site?" Mr. Hamm said.
"We have one of North America's worst toxic wastelands simmering near people's
homes."
In an interview in Truro on Friday, Health Minister Jim Smith said department
staff are monitoring the situation.
A new Halifax group, Action for the Evacuation of Frederick Street, is staging a
rally on Spring Garden Road today to support the Frederick Street residents and to
urge Premier Russell MacLellan to move them immediately.
With Steve Proctor, Truro Bureau
A walk down Frederick St
Saturday, May 1, 1999
The Halifax Herald Limited
. EDITORIAL
WELL, hallelujah. Ten members of Parliament are going to take a tour of the
Sydney tar ponds,
and even a walk down Frederick Street, this summer.
Members of the Commons environment committee decided this week it's time to
educate
themselves on the - home of the tar ponds, the coke
ovens, chain-link
fences, hazard warnings and a century's accumulation of steelmaking sludge
bubbling up in
backyards.
What a brainwave.
Muggah Creek is possibly Canada's worst toxic dump and surely its most
bungled
cleanup.
So it's about time Parliament's environmental sleuths took a personal
interest
in the 700,000
tonnes of toxic waste and the repeated health concerns of folks on Frederick
Street, which
borders the old coking operation.
Help can't come soon enough for Debbie Ouellette and other Frederick Street
residents.
What they really need, however, is not a parliamentary field trip, but
governments prepared to
help them move away, now, from the muck that is infiltrating their homes,
destroying their peace of
mind and - they believe despite government reassurances - injuring their
health.
On Thursday, Mrs. Ouellette sounded desperate as she tearfully showed
reporters
the stuff
seeping into her basement - yellow ooze that looks like the muck which
appeared
on the coke
ovens site and in neighbouring yards last year.
As any parent would, she worries about her children's health and the
vanished
security of their
family home.
And why wouldn't she? Tests of last spring's ooze found high levels of
arsenic
and such
carcinogens as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals and benzene.
Later came a chaser
of black goo laced with naphthalene.
But a consultant engaged by the province to assess the problem said there
was
no health hazard
on the street. So the mess was buried in the fall.
Now it's back. And the province still, shamefully, has no plan to move
affected
residents.
It is time it did. Even the Joint Action Group - the ponderous committee
charged with handling the
cleanup - is now calling for people to be moved by June 1 unless government
defines a separation
zone.
So here's hoping the MPs get some ooze on their shoes during their Sydney
field
trip.
Maybe then they'll shame the two governments into shouldering their first
responsibility. That is to
help worried Frederick Streeters move out of possible harm's way while
officials figure out the
extent of the hazard and how to clean it up.
Complaints of nausea, headaches and sore throats continue. People are
confused
by conflicting
views of the health risk. Cantox Environmental has said the street is safe,
a
Sierra Club review has
disagreed and Cantox has defended its finding.
Moreover, residents know a cleanup is not going to happen soon. There is no
agreement on how
to do it. No federal money has been budgeted for it. It's a fair question
whether we know how to
remediate a mess of this scale. One attempt, by incineration, was a costly
fiasco.
The local MLA, Liberal Paul MacEwan, certainly doesn't have the answer. Mr.
MacEwan
recently said a cleanup, not relocation, is the "definitive solution," that
the
problem "took a hundred
years to create" and residents should be patient.
Move if you're unhappy, said Mr. MacEwan. But the province isn't responsible
for moving you; it
didn't create the problem.
Really? Didn't government operate the mill? And doesn't it still own the
problem? You can be sure
it wouldn't let a private owner shrug off its liabilities so complacently.
With the old firebrand MacEwan turned comfortable apologist, the tar ponds'
neighbours could
use a few politicians prepared to walk a mile in their ooze before
dismissing
their concerns.
So if the green MPs are serious about cleaning up this mess, power to them.
But
helping families
relocate should be their first priority.
Back
Copyright © 1999 The Halifax Herald Limited
JAG will be involved in Frederick
Street decision: Samson
By Steve MacInnis, Cape Breton Post, May 1, 1999
Nova Scotia’s environment minister says any
decision on the relocation of Frederick Street
residents will be made in conjunction with the
partners involved in the Joint Action Group
(JAG).
“We will present the findings of the testing to the
partners in the process. In would be unfair not to
include them in this decision,” says Michel
Samson.
Samson, MLA for Richmond, says his
department is working directly with JAG and
while he appreciates the frustrations of the
residents, the process is in place and his
government will not be acting unilaterally.
Frederick Street in located in Sydney’s Whitney
Pier district adjacent to the Muggah Creek
Watershed – considered Canada’s worst toxic
waste zone.
Some 125 acres of land are highly contaminated
with a host of toxic chemicals and heavy metals,
the legacy of nearly a century of steel making
and byproduct manufacturing.
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