Clean Production and Toxics

Toxic ‘not’ spots

In response to the toxic plume of mercury, arsenic, toluene, selenium, PCBs, and heavy metals that continuously wash out into Lake Erie from the old industrial harbour at Port Stanley, citizens and scientists have urged the federal government to identify the harbour as an “Area of Concern”, a designation as one of the worst sites of toxic pollution within the Great Lakes watershed.

The government has refused to add Port Stanley to the list. All the while, these contaminants wash along the Lake Erie shoreline to a municipal water intake that provides drinking water for 100,000 people, including parts of London.

At least three of the fourteen use impairments used to designate a site an Area of Concern under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement are present in Port Stanley, according to Environment Canada studies. A more detailed investigation of conditions in the harbour could well show other use impairments.

But it is highly unlikely that Port Stanley will be recognized as an Area of Concern. Since the Canadian and U.S. governments named 42 Areas of Concern around the Great Lakes in 1987, only one other area has been added: Presque Isle Bay at Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1991. In the last 18 years no new Areas of Concern have been designated.

In 1998, the International Joint Commission, which oversees the AOC program, said that Lake St. Clair and the St. Joseph River should be considered by the governments for designation as Areas of Concern. The two federal governments decided not to designate them saying that the problems in them could be addressed through other programs.

In 2004, citizens in Elmira, Ontario, urged the government to designate their area as an Area of Concern. They argued that dioxins and other toxics from chemical plants in this town of 12,000 people flow down the Grand River, causing contamination all the way out to Lake Erie. The governments, again, denied the request.

Why do people want to have their area designated as an Area of Concern? The prime reason is that it increases the attention of federal, provincial and state governments in cleaning up the area. It means that a more thorough assessment of the problems in the area will be carried out, and that a clean-up plan will be developed. It also means that the public must be involved in the processes around the clean-up, usually in the form of a public advisory committee. Finally, being designated as an Area of Concern raises the priority given to the area when decisions are being made about which clean-up projects to fund.

The reasons why communities sometimes want to be designated as Areas of Concern are the very reasons why the federal, provincial and state governments are not interested in designating new ones. They do not want to have more locations where they are committed to carrying out the thorough assessments, planning and clean-up that the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement entails. In response to the request from Elmira for designation, Canada’s Minister of the Environment said, “Environment Canada has not considered any further Area of Concern designations and has placed a priority on the environmental recovery and delisting of the existing designated areas.”

An important part of a revitalized Agreement is a meaningful role for the public.

The residents of Port Stanley, Elmira and those concerned about the St.. Clair and St. Joseph rivers have been ignored because officials are under no obligation to listen.

The International Joint Commission and the federal governments should put in place a formal means of petitioning the government to designate a new area of concern. In addition, it could require the governments to periodically conduct a survey to determine whether additional sites should be designated as Areas of Concern.

Despite the many criticisms that are made of the Area of Concern and remedial action planning processes, this program has contributed immensely towards the cleanup of the Great Lakes. Refusing to designate other areas that are toxic hotspots will only slow that cleanup. Indeed it will allow increased contamination of the Great Lakes.

jjackson@glu.org

© 2009 Great Lakes News.