Government will be fiscally responsible when cleaning toxic sludge: Donham
By Tanya Collier MacDonald
Cape Breton Post
Monday, June 27, 2003
All options to clean up Sydney's
toxic site are still on the table but
a provincial spokesperson is
warning this community that
government needs to be fiscally
responsible.
Parker Donham, spokesperson
for the provincial Sydney
Tar Ponds Agency said "people,
you've got to think realistically
about what's worth another two
or three or four hundred million
dollars. Governments will think
realistically about that."
That doesn't mean the
cheapest options will prevail but
"it's very difficult to get people
who are considering a complicated
problem like this to factor
cost in," said Donham. "But I
can assure you that cost is a factor
for government."
Donham said he doesn't
believe "cost is going to trump
everything but we're talking
about hundreds and hundreds
of millions of dollars. That's not
trivial. And people better wrap
their heads around that fact."
Cleanup costs for the tar
ponds range from $120 million to
$330 million and the coke ovens
could be remediated for as little
as $40 million or as high as $120
million.
The most expensive option,
co-burning, was also the most
popular during a workshop
exercise facilitated by the Joint
Action Group.
The community-driven
process gathered feedback from
more than 1700 CBRM residents.
The option to be used for
both the tar ponds and coke
ovens in conjunction with other
methods was estimated to cost
about $450 million but could
approach $1 billion when all
costs are factored in.
Governments are now doing
a cost analysis of the options
included in the JAG recommendation.
Donham said consultants
contracted to shortlist the
cleanup methods included the
'cadillac' technologies in their
report because it was considered
"a technically feasible way
of cleaning up the problem and
it's attractive to certain people."
JAG chair Dan Fraser said
"it seems one of our partners
(the province) is on a train here
that is different than anything
we've expected at this point".
What the federal government
determined as a common factor
in two failed attempts at cleaning
up the toxic sites was that no
community consultation had
taken place before a method was
selected, he said.
"It was government deciding,
taking action, and defending
that action. It didn't work," said
Fraser.
JAG was then created. Its
mandate was to find out what
cleanup solutions would be
acceptable to the community.
The result was a short list of 10
cleanup options for the community's
consideration.
"From the Joint Action
Group perspective, we believed
and we still believe that government
has an obligation to honour,
to the best of their ability,
the wishes of our community
based on what they have found
acceptable in terms of a cleanup
option."
Garth Bangay, Atlantic
regional director general of
Environment Canada, said all 10
options are "real options. My
very clear understanding is that
they are all viable and use
known technology and can
achieve the cleanup objectives
that we set for the site. If they
hadn't met all that criteria, they
wouldn't have been put on the
table."
Bangay said cost is an important
factor but so is the length of
time, amount of disruption and
the possibility of both immediate
and long-term risk to the
community.
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