Muggah Creek Watershed
PUBLICATIONThe Gazette (Montreal)
DATE Sat 29 May 1999
EDITION FINAL
SECTION/CATEGORY News
PAGE NUMBERA8
BYLINE ANDREW DUFFY
STORY LENGTH 698
HEADLINE:
Nova Scotia offers to buy toxic homes: Cleanup for
country's worst such site
The families who live next to Canada's worst toxic site, the
Sydney Tar Ponds, will have their homes bought by the Nova Scotia
government as part of a three-year, $62- million cleanup plan
unveiled yesterday.
Ten families were moved from their homes near the site, in the
heart of Sydney, N.S., this year when orange goo, laced with
arsenic, began bubbling from their basement drain pipes.
The province sent letters yesterday to all 24 families living on
Frederick St. and Curry Lane, offering to buy their homes.
"I'm really happy: It has been a long time coming," said Juanita
MacKenzie, 42, who has lived on Frederick St., next to a 100-acre
toxic site, for 14 years.
MacKenzie and her family have suffered repeated bouts of
headaches, sore throats, burning eyes and infections, which they
blame on their toxic neighbour.
Nova Scotia Public Works Minister Clifford Huskilson said the
homes are being purchased not because the residents face immediate
health risks, but because tests on the nearby site will require
drilling and other work that "may be disruptive to the residents."
Residents of the two streets will be given a year to decide
whether to accept the government's offer.
It's expected that most of the residents will jump at the
opportunity to leave the area, which is home to a multi-layered
cesspool of toxics left behind by the city's steel-making
industry.
The tar ponds - which sit in Sydney's tidal estuary - contain an
estimated 700,000 tonnes of PCBs and heavy metals, some of which
are flushed with each tide into Sydney Harbour.
Upstream from the tar ponds is the site of the former coke ovens
where the soil is so polluted that it can erupt into flames:
contamination has been found 80 feet beneath the surface.
Above that site is the city's 100-year-old landfill, which leaches
pollutants into the coke-ovens site.
Studies show the people of Syndey suffer an increased incidence of
cancer and birth defects, but there's no conclusive evidence the
problems are the result of the city's pollution.
The federal and provincial governments have already spent $52
million trying to clean up the area, but their initial attempt was
abandoned three years ago.
The governments tried to burn the toxic sludge until it was
discovered the material held far higher levels of PCBs than the
incinerator could handle. A subsequent plan to cover the ponds
with slag from the steel plant was scrapped in the face of fierce
opposition.
The cleanup is now being directed by a community group in Sydney
known as the Joint Action Group.
Environment Minister Christine Stewart said the federal government
will contribute $38 million over three years to finance the site
projects developed by the community action group.
"It's a blight that obviously needs to be fixed up," Stewart said.
Over the next three years, work will begin on the first phase of
remediation, expected to cost $47 million.
The money will be spent to establish a buffer zone between the
site and nearby residents. It's expected the homes of Frederick
St. and Curry Lane will form part of that zone once they're
purchased by the government.
A new sewer system will also be built to intercept and divert
sewage outfalls that now travel through the coke-ovens site and
into the harbour, and a system will be put in place to control
pollutants leaching from the city's landfill.
A risk-assessment study will also be conducted to determine what
kind of chemical exposure is faced by the people of Sydney.
Elizabeth May, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada,
said it's possible that thousands of homes will have to be bought
out by the province.
"It's contaminated on a scale that befits eastern Europe - and
it's right in the middle of the most populated part of Cape
Breton," she said.
The Sydney Tar Ponds are the worst of an estimated 5,000
contaminated sites for which the federal government has some
responsibility.
Canada's auditor-general has estimated that addressing the problem
will cost federal government at least $2 billion.
But Canada's largest landlord still has no over-all plan for
managing its contaminated sites.
The sites are now managed on a department-by-department basis.
PUBLICATIONCTV News and Current Affairs
DATE Fri 28 May 1999
STORY LENGTH 387
HEADLINE:
Canadian taxpayers face a multi-million dollar bill for
the clean up of the country's most toxic dump - Nova
Scotia's Sydney tar ponds
LISA LAFLAMME: Canadian taxpayers face a multi-million dollar bill
for the clean up of the country's most toxic dump, Nova Scotia's
Sydney tar ponds. The ponds are so poisonous, containing nearly a
million tonnes of chemical sludge, Ottawa and the province are
paying homeowners to move. CTV's Tom Walters has more on a
neighbourhood environmental inspectors say is the worst place to
live in Canada.
TOM WALTERS (Reporter): Juanita McKenzie was hugging politicians
today. Her way of saying thanks for the new house.
JUANITA McKENZIE (Resident): This is a very big thing for us, a
very good victory.
WALTERS: Two weeks ago Juanita left her old house, moved out by
the Nova Scotia government in what was supposed to be a temporary
relocation. The reason - poisonous ooze that had seeped through
foundations on Sydney's notorious Frederick Street leaving some
afraid of their own basements.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN (1): This is arsenic and I don't want to go any
further.
WALTERS: Now the government has gone further, offering to make the
move permanent.
CLIFFORD HUSKILSON (Nova Scotia Works Minister): To purchase the
homes of the residents living on Frederick Street and Curries
Lane.
WALTERS: Offering to buy out the twenty-four families closest to
the site of the old Sidney Steel Coke Ovens. This comes just as
provincial and federal politicians promise another $62 million
dollars.
CHRISTINE STEWART (Federal Environment Minister): It's another
crucial step in cleaning up Sydney once and for all.
WALTERS: They are tackling the worst toxic waste sites in Canada,
the coke ovens and the tar ponds filled with poisonous PCBs and
heavy metals. The dregs of a hundred years of dirty industry. But
now help to the community divides the community. The government
calls this a compassionate gesture but insists there is no health
problem. That is cold comfort to nearby neighbours who are not
being bought out.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN (1): Where was the compassion for the rest of the
people that are living there.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN (2): How can you say that we aren't affected,
how?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN (3): Hey buddy, you moved everybody around me
and left me there with my kids. So compassion my ass.
WALTERS: And so if we have heard the last of Frederick Street, we
are just beginning to hear about Tupper Street. Tom Walters, CTV
News, Halifax.
Relocate more tar ponds neighbours - Sierra Club
By Jocelyn Bethune, Chronicle Herald, May 31, 1999 Sydney - The Sierra Club of Canada is calling on the Nova Scotia government to
relocate more families from neighbourhoods adjacent to the Sydney tar ponds.
"They can't stop with just Frederick (Street) and Curry's (Lane)," Elizabeth May,
executive director of the national environmental group, said Sunday, two days after
the province offered to buy every home on those streets.
"They are going to have to move (residents from) other streets that are close by," she
said from her Ottawa home.
"Tupper, Vulcan, Laurier, Intercolonial - they are all streets bordering on the old
coke-ovens site. It's not just one or two streets, it's a great deal of Sydney."
Two weeks ago, 10 families were evacuated to a downtown hotel because arsenic
was found in their homes.
Ms. May even suggested that most of downtown Sydney should be relocated nearer
to Sydney River.
"I know that is going to surprise people that we'd take such a view."
She says the toxic waste that contaminates the tar ponds and coke-ovens site can be
found throughout the city, using as an example the site of a new Sobeys store on
Prince Street where contaminated mud was discovered centimetres below the
building site.
Ms. May said even though the relocation of residents satisfied a short-term goal, the
long-term objective - to see the cleanup of over 700,000 tonnes of toxic sludge
created by 100 years of steelmaking at Sysco - is still a priority for the club.
The announcement Friday that three levels of government will pump $62 million into a
cleanup of the site is also good progress, but "obviously, it is not going to be
enough," she said.
"We are continuing to press for the relocation of a broader area. We think the
province has to accept there is a health hazard to living so close to the coke-ovens
site."
She worries a cleanup may cause contaminants to resurface.
"The whole reason Frederick Street became an issue was the (site remediation)
activities last spring disturbed the site. That's going to happen a lot more" with a
cleanup project.
That's what Lorne Green, councillor for the area and a Tupper Street resident, is afraid
of. Several residents of streets near Frederick Street and Curry's Lane met at his
home Friday night to discuss the buyout offer to their neighbours.
"When the government decided that people would be relocated, the panic that put in
the community was unbelievable," he said.
"The residents believed in their government (when told) that there wasn't any problem
with the Frederick Street area. . . . With the relocation (package), the government is
admitting (a problem)," Mr. Green said.
A buffer zone of at least 300 metres should have been announced, he said.
Ms. May says Sydney's environmental woes could serve as an example for other
communities dealing with toxic cleanups.
"We are looking to have Sydney become an international centre for toxic chemical
research and remediation, so we can create something good out of this."
She said with so many chemicals found in both water and soil, it is an ideal site for
study.
"At the University of Waterloo, they conduct research into groundwater contamination.
They actually go out and contaminate water so they can study how to clean it up."
The club also plans to lobby federal Finance Minister Paul Martin to create a national
policy for the cleanup of toxic sites.
Irate Whitney Pier residents to hold information pickets
By Tanya Collier, Cape Breton Post, May 31, 1999
Some residents in Whitney Pier will vocalize their disgust
this week at government’s decision to leave them behind
while moving others away from Canada’s worst toxic waste
site.
Lorne Green, district 9 councillor for the regional
municipality, invited about 13 families from Tupper Street,
Lingan Road, and other nearby streets into his home Friday
night to discuss possible action. The residents have
homes neighbouring Frederick Street and Curry’s Lane –
where residents now have an option to sell their homes to
government.
The neighbouring families decided they would begin by
handing out pamphlets at planned information pickets – an
effort to begin today or soon after.
The families will also be asking for a public forum with
provincial environment minister Michel Samson and Clifford
Huskilson, Minister of Transportation and Public Works.
“We want to ask them what they intend to do,” said Green.
Residents also want more details about a separation zone
to be implemented through the Joint Action Group (JAG).
The project is now in its tendering stage, which is expected
to be completed by June 9.
“What if people don’t want to move from that zone. What
about people who want to stay?” questioned Green.
The residents at the Friday night meeting were concerned
government will not address their escalating emotions.
“The issue is much bigger than Frederick Street,” noted
Green.
Sydney - The Sierra Club of Canada is calling on the Nova Scotia government to
relocate more families from neighbourhoods adjacent to the Sydney tar ponds. 
