Last week, CBC reporter Michael Gorman noted that: Last year the government quietly removed Owls Head provincial park in Little Harbour from the province’s pending protected status list. The move was made so negotiations could begin with Lighthouse Links Development Co., which hopes to acquire the 285 hectares of coastal headland, add it to land […]
The province wants your input on six newly proposed wilderness areas
Morning File, Monday, January 13, 2020
1. Council preview “Rules for Uber, a plan for climate change, and a cooling-off period for politicians and staff are all on the agenda for Halifax regional council’s meeting this week,” reports Zane Woodford: The meeting, starting at 10am Tuesday, also includes an appeal hearing for a design review committee decision at 1pm and a […]
Northern Pulp, past and future: It ain’t over till it’s over
On December 20, 2019 Premier Stephen McNeil announced that the province would be respecting the Boat Harbour Act, and that Northern Pulp would have to stop pumping its effluent into the Boat Harbour treatment facility on January 31, 2020. Without the use of Boat Harbour, the Northern Pulp mill in Pictou County would have no...
Pictou Landing First Nation: “We are sticking to the January 31, 2020 date”
It didn’t take Northern Pulp long to start issuing thinly veiled threats. Just before noon Tuesday, Nova Scotia Environment Minister Gordon Wilson announced that the company that owns the Pictou County pulp mill would have to submit a full environmental assessment report for its new effluent treatment facility. That process that could take two years, […]
Environment Minister Gordon Wilson orders two-year environmental assessment of Northern Pulp Mill’s proposed effluent treatment system
Clear as Sludge: What does the decision mean for the future?
Nova Scotia’s Environment Minister is ordering Northern Pulp to produce more information and complete a full environmental assessment before he will approve the mill’s proposed wastewater treatment plant and a pipeline bringing the effluent from the plant to the Northumberland Strait. The project will replace a 50-year-old polluting system that dumps into Boat Harbour that […]
Here’s what Nova Scotia’s cabinet ministers had to say today
Northern Pulp Environment Minister Gordon Wilson says he has read all 3,000 pages and “about eight binders worth” of submissions related to whether he should approve a new effluent treatment plant proposed by Northern Pulp. The new plant would replace the Boat Harbour facility which by law is scheduled to close January 31, 2020. The...
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 […]
Feeling blue? Go to the purple house
Morning File, Friday, November 29, 2019
One of the stories I think the Examiner has covered best recently is the Northern Pulp saga. As Joan Baxter pointed out last week, deadlines are looming — both the December 17 deadline for the Department of Environment’s decision on the environmental assessment for the proposed pipe, and the January 31 deadline for Northern Pulp […]
Northern Pulp’s “political game”
It's decision time for the Nova Scotia government. It will either approve a pipeline for pumping mill effluent into the Northumberland Strait, or won't. And it will either extend the Boat Harbour Act, or won't. Those affected by the mill operation are laying out their case and preparing next moves.
The story of the bleached kraft pulp mill in Pictou County, which has already dragged on for 53 years, is coming to a nail-biting climax. How — and when — it’s going to end is anyone’s guess. Time is running out, and two key dates loom. The first is December 17, 2019, which is the […]
Opposition to Canso spaceport grows
“The government of Nova Scotia and the government of Canada are partnering with a dubious, nearly-bankrupt Ukrainian company using Cold-war technology," says Michael Byers, an expert in space law.
I hadn’t even made it into Canso when I happened upon the first person willing and eager to speak her mind on the proposed spaceport that Maritime Launch Services wants to construct in the picturesque community at the very end of Highway 16, an area that boasts spectacular coastline, one ocean-side provincial park and another […]