Fisheries Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2006

[Daniel Landry]

I did a study on the species in that place in the early 1980s, and it was already contaminated. That was over 25 years ago. But if you look at each area in succession, it is small areas that are becoming contaminated one by one, and the effect is cumulative because it is no longer possible to decontaminate unless you stop the contamination process and clean up. If you continue contaminating bit by bit, at one point, there will be no fishing areas left.

The Baie des Chaleurs is still a thriving place in terms of fishing. There are pelagics, mackerel and herring that enter the Bay from the Gulf and allow small fishing operations to earn a living. If we continue polluting, little by little it will become impossible to fish in the Bay without receiving negative media attention. The press will say that our fish is contaminated. Once part of an area is contaminated, sometimes, if it serves someone’s interest, they will say the entire Bay is contaminated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Very quickly, Monsieur Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Initially, when there was talk about setting up the Bennett plant in Belledune—I remember it well; the project as such was launched in 2003—were you already concerned? Or did you become concerned later, once you learned what the project was about?

[Daniel Landry]

It was when I learned what the project was about that my concern grew.

We know that fines are usually immediately imposed when there are small oil spills. Fisheries and Oceans is very strict about any form of contamination by fishermen and seafood-processing plants.

We would never have thought that the plant could be set up without an environmental impact assessment being conducted first. We are dealing here with a plant that will be treating contaminants. We expected Fisheries and Oceans to require an environmental impact assessment before anything else.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerald Keddy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Blais and Mr. Landry.

Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses. It's a very interesting story, a little complicated, we might say.

I just want to first register the disappointment that we didn't have a written presentation, because you had so many facts and figures. Most of us were writing furiously, trying to get some of these down. I guess it wasn't maybe submitted in time to be translated to French, English, or whatever.

I want to retrace a couple of things to try to clarify points that I only had partial information on. It's a very complex but fascinating discussion about what's going on in the Baie des Chaleurs.

First of all, for clarification, I want to ask about the factories, and I must apologize, I did miss the first few minutes of the presentation. The smelter in Belledune, is that still operational?

[Inka Milewski]

Yes, it is.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay. So we had lead and cadmium issues related to that.

[Inka Milewski]

Yes, arsenic, lead, cadmium.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

And arsenic as well; okay, I missed that.

Is the fertilizer plant still operational?

[Inka Milewski]

No, it stopped about eight years ago.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

It was ten years ago.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I would like to go back to the fertilizer plant for a moment, because you talked about many hectares, I don't know, 30 or 40 hectares that were covered.

[Inka Milewski]

Yes.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

That's about 100 acres covered, and in some places as much as 12 metres deep--almost concrete-like, I think you described it. In 10 or 12 years, or whatever it's been, is there any mitigation of that, or any observations? Is that still as bad? Is it restoring itself in any way?

[Inka Milewski]

I think everybody may have received a copy of all of what I mentioned, so it's....

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

It's all documented.

[Inka Milewski]

It's all meticulously documented, based on documents I obtained under right to information.

Specifically on the fertilizer plant, DFO is currently still negotiating what's called authorizing a HADD. DFO has a process for an industry that wants to dump effluent into a lake, a stream, a bay, or whatever it is. It has to get authorization from DFO for what's called a habitat alteration, disruption, or destruction permit. What's ironic is that this was never issued for the fertilizer plant. In a sense, the effluent was allowed to be dumped and allowed to affect the bottom without DFO ever issuing the company a HADD, which would have set out the requirements for the company to create new habitat for the habitat it destroyed. How it's going to re-create 100 acres of habitat, I don't know, but that is currently still under negotiation. They say the edges of this large area are slowly starting to recover, but they estimate that it will take decades and decades before it completely recovers--if, in fact, it ever does.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

You talked about intakes on power plants. I believe it was power. Was that associated with a smelter?

[Inka Milewski]

No, the power plants are separate.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Independent.

[Inka Milewski]

Yes. That's a separate issue; it's a section 32 issue.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

It's a tremendous loss of--I think one of our colleagues called them fingerlings--young fish and eggs, and so on.

I want to ask about that, but first could you clarify what it is that makes this unique. You described something called a gyre effect. Could you explain that?

[Inka Milewski]

A gyre is the coming together of two opposing currents. So you have currents coming around the Gaspé and you have currents coming from what I call the head of the bay, and when they meet, they work in a counterclockwise direction. It's called a gyre. It requires two counter-opposing currents. As I said, they are not common.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

So this bay doesn't flush with normal tidal action. You get flushing, but you get this effect right in the mouth. It tends to deposit things, like a trap, you might say.