Misunderstandings

Voice of the people - Christiane Tanner
Halifax Herald
Wed., May 11, 2005

I would like to respond to your May 4 editorial "Another tar ponds cleanup delay." It is time to clear up some misunderstandings in the minds of Nova Scotians and Canadians.

It is a fact that JAG was a public process. It studied very extensively the content of the polluted sites resulting from long years of steelmaking, including the tar ponds. It did serious studies, to be used in the selection of the remediation solutions and their applications. It identified with precision the contents of the tar ponds and coke ovens, and the location of the pollutants. It also explored the various remediations possible and, after education of and consultation with the public, it recommended solutions that were safe and reasonable. Yes, that was all public.

However, since the solutions announced by the province of Nova Scotia are not the ones that had been studied, selected, recommended and approved by the public survey carried out by JAG, it is necessary now to study the newly proposed solutions and see if they will be safe and acceptable to the public, as promised by the federal and provincial governments at the start of the process. This is the reason we need a full panel review, with meaningful public input on the remediations.

Christiane Tanner
Sydney