Pictou Mayor Jim Ryan and Friends of the Northumberland Strait president Jill Graham-Scanlan have repeated their opposition to treated effluent from a local pulp mill being discharged in open water.

Ryan said in an emailed statement that he scanned the 126-page document Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corporation registered with the province on Dec. 7 as part of a Class II environmental assessment and looks forward to viewing it in more detail. He described “vague promises and commitments to minimum standards” contained in the company’s proposal to treat effluent onsite, burn sludge in the pulp mill’s power boiler and discharge into Pictou Harbour.

“We have all been anxiously (waiting) for the filing of the registration document,” he said. “I had a quick scan of the document this evening and, at this time, I see exactly what I had been expecting considering the rhetoric we have been hearing from Northern Pulp representatives for the past few months.”

 
He said air emissions from the pulp mill have been “disproportionately affecting residents and businesses in the town for more than half a century.”

“The discharge of any effluent, treated or untreated, into Pictou Harbour is unacceptable,” he said. “We look forward to a future where the concerns of odours and associated negative health outcomes are in our past.”

Graham-Scanlan said in a phone interview that members of the Friends of the Northumberland Strait group are as concerned about what is missing in the document as what it proposes. She said the document does not specify the discharge point in the harbour.

“From what I have seen and what others in our group who have read it say to me, there is a gaping hole in the document,” she said. “Without a viable discharge point, there is no discharge proposal.”

She said she supports the Class II environmental assessment regime but the company needs to “produce a lot more evidence to the province that their proposal will work.”

Raymond Plourde, senior wilderness co-ordinator with the Ecology Action Centre, questioned the $350-million commitment to upgrade the mill and how one so old can become less polluting.

The mill has been in hibernation mode since January 2020.

“I suspect the $350 is an approximate amount and not broken down,” he said. “To take a machine from the 1960s and say it will be the cleanest mill in the world is impossible.”

He also dismissed claims of less odour from the air emissions’ contents.

“They’re talking about odour,” he said. “That’s a big pill for the people of Pictou and elsewhere to swallow. It’s the fine particulate matter. That plume of smoke has a high level of chemical pollution.”

He said a better option is to dismantle the mill, remediate the area and build a modern mill in a more remote location with half the pulping capacity to conform with what Nova Scotia’s forests can sustain. Eliminating the bleached craft pulping process would substantially reduce pollution, he said.

 
“I’m not against a properly sized forest industry,” he said, noting his support for the pulp mill in Port Hawkesbury with its less polluting thermal mechanical process.

Meanwhile, Andy MacGregor said he supports the thrust of the document Northern Pulp has registered. MacGregor is part of MacGregor Industrial Group in Pictou County and a member of the founding steering committee of Friends of a New Northern Pulp.

He said he has not read the document but understands what is being proposed.

“I think they’ve really stepped up their game,” he said. “They’ve set their target to be one of the best mills in the world.”

He said his and other local industries continue to be affected by the mill’s closure.

“Because businesses didn’t close, it doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt us,” he said.

He called for a third-party review of the proposal beyond the province’s deliberations and response by those who oppose it.

“Are people going to give it a fair shake? That’s my concern,” he said.

MacGregor emphasized the point made on the Friends of a New Northern Pulp website that the pulp mill and forestry practices that include harvest and renewal are essential to healthy forests and the forest industry.

“We’re doing it because we understand forestry has to happen to have a healthy forest,” he said. “It’s not about our back yard. We hope of someone in the community who is against this has the data to back it up. That’s what we have.”

With the process now underway, the province’s department of Environment and Climate Change will draft terms of reference to guide the preparation of a Class II environmental assessment report by Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corporation. The terms of reference will be made public on Dec. 21, and a 30-day public comment period will begin that day.

The Environment Act’s environmental assessment regulations state Dec. 23 to Jan. 2 count as one day. As a result, comments will be accepted until Jan. 31, 2022. The province also intends to consult directly with the Mi’kmaq.

A Class II environmental assessment typically takes 275 calendar days to complete, not including the time it takes the company to prepare an environmental assessment report. The company has up to two years, outside of the review time, to prepare the environmental assessment report. In a Class II process, an environmental assessment panel is appointed to review the project and provide a report and recommendation to the minister.

The proposal can be accessed at https://www.novascotia.ca/nse/ea/