Muggah Creek Watershed

Orange ooze seeping into basements: N.S. residents fear substance may be toxic

_ HALIFAX - Debbie Ouellette's house is getting to feel like a prison. A sign on the chain-link fence behind her yard in Sydney, N.S., warns, ``human health hazard.''

On warm days she has to keep her windows closed against the pungent breeze blowing from the adjacent toxic site. And a week ago she slapped a padlock on her basement door after the cellar floor began oozing a mysterious orange substance.

After residents of Sydney's Frederick Street discovered an orange ooze in a brook behind their homes last year, environmental testing revealed that their yards were laced with arsenic, lead, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons at levels far exceeding established guidelines. Provincial health officials assured them their health was not at risk.

But this spring, the substance has been reported in the basements of four houses in the working-class neighbourhood. And some residents are demanding to be moved.

``It's one thing when your yard is filled with arsenic and chemicals, but when it comes into your basement, that's a different situation,'' Ms. Ouellette said yesterday.

The provincial Environment Department took samples from the Ouellette basement last week, but an official said yesterday the results will not be available until next week. Results of a toxic sample taken two weeks ago from a nearby rail bed will be divulged to residents today.

Angela Poirier, an Environment Department spokeswoman, said the province sees no need to move people from Frederick Street.

``If we had scientific evidence that residents' health was being compromised, we would recommend [moving them], but that's not the case right now.''

Ms. Ouellette learned of the latest problem when her 10-year-old son came up from the basement saying, ``Mom, the orange stuff is in the basement.'' She said she is tired of the government's assurances that their health is not at risk. Her family's chronic headaches, watery eyes, and regular infections tell her differently.

Frederick Street homes back on to the heavily contaminated site of the former Sydney Steel coke ovens, now fenced in and bearing signs warning of the pollution. A little farther away lies Muggah Creek, a tidal estuary transformed into PCB-laden tar ponds.

The federal and provincial governments abruptly halted clean-up work on the coke ovens site last year when residents started complaining of headaches and sore throats.

Juanita McKenzie, another Frederick Street resident, called it appalling that authorities have left the Ouellette family in their home while they determine whether the substance in their basement is toxic.

``How much more proof do they need?'' Ms. McKenzie said. ``We have the arsenic there, we have the naphthalene, we have the lead, we have everything there over the guidelines, and the government hasn't acted. They keep saying they need more science.''
PUBLICATIONThe Ottawa Citizen
DATE Fri 07 May 1999
EDITION FINAL
SECTION/CATEGORY News
PAGE NUMBERA18
BYLINE Susan Riley
COLUMN TITLE Susan Riley
STORY LENGTH 732

Here's one minister always ready to leap into inaction

Has the toxic pond in your backyard started to ooze orange sludge? Are you troubled by the vicious tornados that upended communities in Oklahoma, or, closer to home, by an unseasonably dry spring and the forest fires already making their hungry way across Manitoba and Ontario? Is the fact that every new season seems to break an old weather record -- worst ice storm, mildest winter, hottest year -- more than co-incidence?

It would all be very unsettling if we didn't have a dynamic, well-funded federal environment department under the leadership of ** a strong minister like Christine Stewart. In two years on the job, Stewart has proven repeatedly there is no environmental crisis to which she will not respond with further research. Or a comprehensive study leading to a strategic plan. Or --for urgent matters, like climate change -- full-blown ``issues tables''.

The minister outlined for a skeptical (sometimes downright disbelieving) Commons environment committee this week the many initiatives she has launched to protect our natural world (without, of course, interfering with existing corporate practices or intruding on provincial jurisdictions).

Fresh water? Federal officials have persuaded all the provinces but Quebec to agree to a moratorium on the export of bulk fresh water pending further study. (Quebec, naturally, is conducting its own investigation.) Eventually, says Stewart, all the country's environment ministers will unite to produce a ``Canadian freshwater strategy,'' although it could take ``years.''

Presumably, Canadian companies eager to sell our lake water to arid southern states, premiers eyeing potential jobs, and American entrepreneurs itching to challenge our trade laws will be as patient as our Zen-like environment minister.

No sense rushing, after all, when we know so little about fresh water (apart from the trivial fact that we need it to survive). Any strategy will be based on whatever intelligence the International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes uncovers, says Stewart. (It might start by looking out the windows: Great Lakes water levels are three feet lower than usual, as predicted by scientists a decade ago.)

As for endangered species legislation, Mexico, Australia and the United States may have passed laws first -- the Americans have been protecting wildlife for as long as 25 years -- but that doesn't mean Canada's, once it comes, won't be better. Stewart promises a law this fall to ``protect all species at risk wherever they appear in Canada'' on federal, provincial, private or municipal land. Species, but not the habitat upon which they depend to survive. Habitat is tricky, Stewart concedes. Habitat is provincial. Habitat is unresolved. So, asked Liberal MP Clifford Lincoln, in a province like Quebec which already protects certain endangered species (they're all plants), there might be ``two governments protecting species, but no government protecting the habitat that keeps the species alive? I find that extraordinary.''

It's nothing, however, compared to Stewart's bold initiative on climate change. After Canada grudgingly conceded to limit greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below 1990 levels at the Kyoto conference 18 months ago, federal officials summoned 450 experts to sit at 15 issues tables and produce background reports, public outreach plans, strategic approaches -- you're probably starting to get the picture. Anything but action. Stewart is enthusiastic, however: Alberta's once recalcitrant fossil fuel industry, has now taken the lead, she says.

For every issue, there is similar reassurance. Importing Russian plutonium? ``Not my department,'' says Stewart.'' The much-ballyhoed ``harmonization'' with the provinces? No ``implementation agreements'' with Ontario yet, but the minister has sent stiff letters to Queen's Park; the feds haven't abdicated all responsibility for the environment. No, she can't divulge the subject of the letters.

** Here's an action plan for Christine Stewart and her demoralized staff: keep the weather service, but disband the rest of ** Environment Canada. Why should we be paying these people to stall, to study, to serve as enablers for dinosaurs in industry and tinpot potentates in provincial capitals? It's not just the fuzzy-backed milquetoast; we're all feeling endangered here.

Of course, eliminating a department would require a study by the multi-stakeholder advisory group. That may sound inadequate, but as the minister told the Commons, when asked about the poor people who live on Frederick Street in Sydney, N.S., upstream from the tar ponds. ``It is quite incorrect to say nothing is being done.''

The Citizen's Susan Riley writes here on Wednesdays and Fridays. Read previous Susan Riley columns at www.ottawacitizen.com
Cape Breton Post
News for Friday, May 7, 1999

Pier residents expect goo results today

By Steve MacInnis
Provincial Environment Department officials are expected to inform Frederick Street residents today of test results from the latest ooze seeping from a rail bed near their homes.

Angela Poirier, department spokesperson, said Thursday results from the rail seep are in but declined to release the findings until the residents are informed.

Test results of an unidentified substance seeping into some basements on the street are not expected until early next week, she said.

Resident Debbie Ouellette said she’s locked her basement door and won’t venture down into the cellar until she hears what’s contained in a strange orange substance seeping into her basement.

Across the street, resident Juanita McKenzie said she’s convinced the results of the rail seep and the basements will indicate the presence of arsenic.

Arsenic levels 18 times higher than government approved standards were discovered last year from a seep on the rail bed. Soil taken from yards on the street indicated the presence of several metals and chemicals.

The basement seeps were discovered last week and environment officials moved quickly to begin testing.

Ignoring emissions 'murder'

Government knew Sydney lifestyle wasn't to blame - former worker

By Tera Camus / Cape Breton Bureau, Halifax Herald, May 7, 1999
Sydney - The provincial and federal governments can't blame lifestyles for Sydney's high cancer rates, says a former coke-ovens worker who's sick of seeing people die.

Deleskie brothers of Sydney, Nova ScotiaDon Deleskie said governments knew 20 years ago that Sydney residents would have shorter lives and more chronic disease from exposure to toxic fumes spewed from the now-closed ovens, which were part of steel-making efforts for 100 years.

"In my opinion government committed murder. The community was like sheep that were slaughtered by these emissions."

A 1985 federal report to the province said Sydney residents were in danger. "Reopening the Sysco plant without additional emission controls could increase sickness and death of workers at the coke plant and possibly of residents in Sydney," the report said.

The ovens, between Whitney Pier and Ashby, cooked 2,735 tonnes of coal daily until closing in 1988. The report said that in 1972, 2.84 tonnes of toxic dust fell daily on Sydney; in 1975, 18 tonnes of sulphur dioxide emissions fell.

"The well documented evidence of carcinogenicity of coke-oven emissions, the largely uncontrolled and high level of emissions from the Sysco plant . . . the close proximity of residential population . . . support the contention that reopening the plant without emission controls could be expected to result in an increase of morbidity and mortality in Sydney residents and coke-plant workers," the report concluded.

Last September, a study by Sydney's Joint Action Group said cancer has been killing residents at a rate 16 per cent above the national average for decades.

Dr. Michel Camus and Dr. Pierre Band found that, over a 44-year period ending in 1994, the incidence of 22 diseases was much higher in Sydney thanµ in the rest of Canada. Although not proven, they suggested the environment could be to blame. "We were not told," Mr. Deleskie shouted, losing his breath. He has a severe lung disorder from having ingested coke-oven fumes. "The people had a right to be told."

The 1985 report also noted the untreated effluent released into Muggah Creek, which created the Sydney tar ponds. It contains 700,000 tonnes of toxic sludge. "While a number of lifestyle factors such as smoking and diet may influence findings in this risk assessment, it is clear that a public and occupational health problem was associated with these coke ovens," the 1985 report said.

Mr. Deleskie and his brother, Ron, have been fighting more than 10 years to have Ottawa and the province right past wrongs. They aren't pleased with the results.

The Joint Action Group was created after a failed bid to incinerate the tar ponds three years ago. It has yet to address any cleanup or health issues. The Deleskie brothers want a public forum.

"I don't hear JAG telling people how dangerous it is to live in Sydney," Don Deleskie said. "That coke-ovens site is so laced with benzene that people's health is in a precarious situation."

The province insists lifestyles are as much to blame for Sydney's high cancer rates as the environment. Last month, Dr. Andrew Padmos and a panel of physicians hired by the province dismissed toxins as the main cause of local cancers. On Thursday he said treating the problem should be the focus. He said he hasn't seen the 1985 study, but he questioned its findings.

"The evidence gets awfully difficult if you talk about people who were downwind of a coke-oven operation. Unless you do a full-scale cohort study and case-control study, you can't ever say that with certainty."

The study said Frederick Street, 450 metres northeast of the coke ovens, received the heaviest levels of polycyclic aromated hydrocarbons and benzopyrene contamination daily.

Another study by Cantox Environmental last year determined that people living on or near Frederick Street were not in any danger, despite sludge oozing from the ground and into some basements.

The province's chief medical officer, Dr. Jeff Scott, continues to support that position.

Meanwhile, Sydney-Victoria MP Peter Mancini wants Ottawa to stop dragging its feet and get the cleanup started.

"Since the signing of the memo of understanding for the cleanup of the Sydney tar ponds eight months ago, a number of health studies have identified alarmingly high cancer rates and other serious diseases in our community," he said. "Yet not one ounce of the identified toxic waste has been cleaned up."

Letter from Roger Dixon

To Whom it May Concern:

In reporting arsenic at "four times the acceptable level" in the Ouillette's basement, the media are causing misunderstanding and confusion. There ARE NO GUIDELINES for toxic substances (including arsenic) present as seepage in the basements of dwelling houses, therefore there can be no "acceptable" levels. The guidelines being referred to here by the media are the CCME's guidelines for zones designated as either industrial, commercial, agricultural, or residential/parkland. All for OUTSIDE - non for INSIDE a building. Thus "four times the acceptable level" in the Ouillette's basement is a totally meaningless concept, based on no health risk assessment knowledge whatsoever. Any reference to "acceptable level" in this context should be immediately withdrawn by those media which have made this statement.

If one were to speculate on a "guideline" (acceptable level) for arsenic in the basement of a dwelling house, although the very idea is preposterous, - such a level would be significantly below those derived by the CCME for exterior zones. Consequently, the present " four times" would be increased enormously, to who knows what - 400 times, 4000 times "guidelines" for inside a house?

To summarize, any reporting based on soil contamination guidelines (acceptable levels) for INSIDE a house is patently absurd, because such guidelines do not exist.

-- Roger Dixon, B.Sc.(Tech), MPH, CIH, P.Eng
Consultant - Health, Safety & Environment
Dixon Lakusta Associates
258 Wynford Place
Oakville, Ontario L6L 5T3, Canada
Tel (905) 469-0948
Fax (905) 469-9938
Email Roger Dixon

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