A lawyer for the Province of Nova Scotia says the Sipekne’katik First Nation has no one but itself to blame when it argues there was “inadequate consultation” with the government over the Alton Gas decision. The First Nation opposes the development of natural gas storage caverns at Alton, a $130 million project that was approved...
Court hears Sipekne’katik appeal of Alton Gas decision
How much consultation is enough when it comes to approving development on land where First Nations claim — but have not received — title to Crown land? That’s one of the thorny questions at the centre of the Sipekne’katik First Nation’s appeal of a decision by the Nova Scotia Minister of Environment which gave the...
Unearthing the city’s buried history
Morning File, Monday, January 27, 2020
News 1. New street checks almost the same as the old Stephen Kimber writes how even after a ban on street checks and an apology from the police chief, the practice still goes on. As former police officer Maurice Carvery says, “they haven’t stopped; they only changed.” This article is for subscribers. Please subscribe. 2. […]
Northern Pulp takes province to court: The saga continues
The unfolding saga of the 53-year-old Pictou County pulp mill operated by Northern Pulp Nova Scotia — a Paper Excellence company that is part of the corporate empire of the billionaire Widjaja family of Indonesia — continues to get “curiouser and curiouser” as Alice in Wonderland once remarked.
Yesterday afternoon, Northern Pulp issued a news release stating it will ask the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia to undertake a judicial review of the Nova Scotia Environment Minister Gordon Wilson’s December 17, 2019 decision requiring the company to submit a full environmental assessment report before deciding to approve its proposed effluent treatment facility to […]
Deciding Northern Pulp’s future
A tangled mess of dubious science, loans, and liabilities will determine how government officials will act in coming days — and how much it will cost Nova Scotians.
Nova Scotia’s business minister Geoff MacLellan says it’s not the time to talk about all the money that Northern Pulp owes the province, and it won’t be until after environment minister Gordon Wilson makes his decision on the mill’s new effluent treatment facility on or before December 17. CBC reporter Michael Gorman notes that MacLellan […]
Pictou Landing First Nation to Stephen McNeil: Honour the Boat Harbour Act and No Pipe in the Strait
The day-by-day countdown to the closing of Boat Harbour happens on a large painting erected in front of the Pictou Landing First Nation band council office. The painting depicts Boat Harbour as it was before it was dammed (and damned) in 1966, transformed from a healthy tidal estuary to a stinking lagoon for the toxic […]
Northern Pulp’s environmental documents: missing mercury, a pulp mill that never was, and oodles of contradictions
Cover photo: “Point D,” where treated Northern Pulp wastewater currently flows from Boat Harbour into the Northumberland Strait, just a few hundred metres from Pictou Landing First Nation. There is much to wade through in the documents Northern Pulp submitted to Nova Scotia Environment on February 7, 2019, when it registered its “Replacement Effluent Treatment […]
Public agencies lost at least $2.2 million on aioTV
Morning File, Tuesday, March 5, 2019
News 1. Northern Pulp This item is written by Jennifer Henderson. The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has received 3,200 submissions from people with an interest in whether the federal regulator should carry out a review of Northern Pulp’s plan to pipe treated effluent 4.1 kilometers out into prime lobster fishing area in the Northumberland Strait. […]
UARB submission raises safety concerns about Alton Gas project
A retired geologist who worked for the province of Nova Scotia as well as the mining giant INCO says he has safety concerns about the proposed Alton Natural Gas Storage Project. Robert Grantham’s letter to the Utility and Review Board (UARB) states not enough information has been made public about the rock formation near Alton...
Containing Northern Pulp’s mess
A half century of toxic waste in Boat Harbour, a leaky pipeline, and what happens next in the mill saga.
The numbers are staggering. Over the past 51 years, the bleached kraft pulp mill on Abercrombie Point in Pictou County has piped about 1.25 trillion litres of toxic effluent into Boat Harbour.[1] That’s enough to fill about half a million Olympic-size swimming pools, or a pipeline one metre in diameter stretching about 1.6 million kilometres, […]