Coal burning riles Cape Mudge

Grant Warkentin
Campbell River Mirror
Oct 05 2005

The Cape Mudge Indian Band worries its members are facing a higher risk of cancer due to coal burning at Elk Falls mill.

"The Cape Mudge Village...is already profoundly and negatively affected by the airborne emissions from the NorskeCanada Elk Falls pulp mill. Additional contamination from the burning of coal would create further damage to the health, safety and enjoyment of life of this aboriginal community," says a letter from the band's lawyers to the provincial government.

Cape Mudge band manager Brian Kelly told Canadian Press recently that the Cape Mudge and Campbell River Indian bands are almost demographically identical- except that the Cape Mudge Band, whose reserve is blanketed with more emissions from the mill than the Campbell River band's reserve, has a higher rate of cancer among its members.

In the Sept. 27 letter to Randy Alexander, provincial director of water and waste protection, law firm Donovan and Company, representing the band, outlines their concerns over emissions from NorskeCanada's Elk Falls pulp and paper mill. The law firm explains the band wants to see extensive monitoring of air quality at the band's Quadra Island village to learn what sort of health effects emissions from the mill's smoke stacks is having on band members.

The problem, the law firm says, is an unwillingness by NorskeCanada to address the issue and refusal in the past to respectfully deal with the band.

"Norske is well aware of the concerns by the We Wai Kai Nation (Cape Mudge band) with respect to the impact of its airborne emissions on the Cape Mudge village, particularly how the stack emissions frequently become entrained and travel directly through Cape Mudge village and how local residents have suffered respiratory ailments and extraordinarily high cancer death rates," the law firm says. "Norske, however, ignored repeated requests for proper monitoring of air quality in the village.

"The consultation with the We Wai Kai First Nation-has been perfunctory and inadequate; it has-scarcely gone beyond mere notification."

On Tuesday, mill spokesperson Carole Dodds said NorskeCanada is continuing to work with the Cape Mudge band to improve air quality monitoring equipment on Quadra Island.

On Oct. 1, mill manager Norm Facey said if the mill were causing health problems, mill employees would be the ones most affected. And if they were affected, the Workers Compensation Board would be "all over" the mill, he added.

Facey also told Canadian Press that the company was willing to work with the Cape Mudge Band to install more monitoring equipment but added that if the Elk Falls mill is not allowed to continue burning coal, it will have a severe economic impact on the mill.

The mill has been burning coal in its main power boiler for several years, technically on a trial basis, as a supplementary fuel.

The mill's goal is to help its main fuel source - salty hog fuel - burn more efficiently and with fewer pollutants.

However, the coal-burning trials have attracted concerns and opposition from area residents and environmentalists, including Cortes Island resident Dolores Broten, who runs pulp and paper mill watchdog group "Reach for Unbleached."

Broten is skeptical of a technical assessment interpreting data from the coal-burning trials. She believes the data is inadequate and incomplete.

As well, she said, the mill can't ignore a health risk assessment done on the mill's emissions a decade ago, which outlines health risks caused by the mill's emissions.

"The consultant notes that the health risk assessment for airborne dioxin (a toxic chemical emitted from burning coal and salty hog fuel) showed no risk to persons in the Campbell River area. This statement is not accurate," she said in a letter to Alexander. "That risk assessment did in fact show a health risk to the members of the Cape Mudge First Nation."

Broten is also skeptical of the government's standards for the mill.

"The technical assessment assures us that Elk Falls pulp mill emissions meet all provincial standards, most of which were developed 25 years ago," she said. "The technical assessment also assures us that Elk Falls pulp mill emissions are significantly lower than those for a hazardous waste incinerator or a municipal garbage incinerator.

None of these are appropriate comparisons.

"Elk Falls is supposed to be a pulp and paper mill, not a contaminated site, a hazardous waste incinerator or a coal-fired power plant."

The mill's permit to burn coal expired last week but has been extended to the end of October.