Evidence of meeting #30 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was poisons.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
—but I was merely interested in the letter you wrote to the Minister of the Environment. I won't ask you about other processes.
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
You mean the original long letter I wrote to the minister? No, I've never had a reply from the minister.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thirdly, do you know whether or not the Ontario government is in fact already providing economic or financial support for this project you're opposing in Port Hope?
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
They're not, to my knowledge. I don't think the government is even considering that or planning to provide funding.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Lastly, regarding your comment that government guidelines concerning chemical substances in the environment should generally be at zero but are not, I wonder if there is any ministry of health in any government in Canada that has adopted the recommendation you're making, that tolerable guidelines should be no greater than zero for these kinds of chemicals.
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
They have not to my knowledge in Canada or anywhere in the world, but I do know that there are government agencies in certain parts of the world—including Australia, for example—where the topic is up for debate.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Right. Okay.
I understand very well what it's like to be somewhat ahead of the debate on things, and I'm going to take it that on this point at least that's where you are.
Mr. Chair, if the parliamentary secretary wishes—
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
—I will share my time with him or with any other member on this side. Otherwise, I'm done.
Thank you very much, by the way, Dr. Blecher. I should say that your evidence is extremely relevant to what we're doing, and it's very good to have on the record the comments you made about the June 5 witness, so thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
We're going to go back to Mr. Sopuck, then, for a minute and a half.
Conservative
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
I have just a quick question on a related topic.
I used to manage a wastewater treatment plant in a previous life. Many wastewater treatment plants take the sludge and spread it on farmers' fields as fertilizer.
What is your view of that process? I know it's not related to this topic here, but I'm intensely curious as to what your view is and what the research shows about what's in that sludge.
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
I'm afraid that's outside of my expertise. I can't answer that.
Conservative
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for being here, Dr. Blecher. That was very interesting testimony.
I'd like to ask you a few questions, because I just want to be sure I understand this. Is the gasification technology that was put forward by REM in the proposal to build a large garbage incinerator in Port Hope currently in use anywhere else in North America or western Europe?
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
I really like that question. Thank you. The answer is no, not in North America—
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
—and as far as we know, nowhere else. We have not been able to document its existence except in the town of Kuznica in Poland, which I've mentioned has a plant that processes 3.5 tonnes a day, compared to the plant they want to construct to process 550 tonnes in Port Hope.
We've done careful due-diligence research, and we have not been able to find.... But I have a concrete statement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that categorically states there are no commercially functioning gasification plants anywhere in North America. There have been some, and they've all failed, and that's why I have called it a failed technology.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Is there any verifiable scientific evidence to say that they could work at all, or is that what's causing them to be denied or to fail? What are the reasons they don't exist anywhere else?
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
I can't answer that, but I imagine it's because they have put out such enormous amounts of poisons that even the local agencies have been unwilling to allow them to carry on exceeding the so-called limits.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
At the June 5 meeting, the president of Renewable Energy Management, or REM as you've been calling it, Lewis Staats, was here. I was looking at the testimony just now. He said repeatedly that their process adheres to the Ontario Ministry of Environment regulations.
Is that true?
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
They have no way of stating that, because they have not built the plant. He has repeatedly made such statements, both here to your committee and elsewhere all over Northumberland County, but they have no idea what their emissions are going to be, because they've never built a plant. They can't state that.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Okay, and there's no evidence to suggest that they would fall within—
Port Hope Residents 4 Managing Waste Responsibly
Well, what he's talking about is guesswork. They've produced a whole lot of figures.
The environmental screening report that was published comes out with these figures, and that's what I'm referring to when I say that they themselves admit they would be putting out these poisons. They give what they claim to be figures that will be the amounts they'll put out, but this is guesswork. They have no way of knowing this because—