Northern Pulp is claiming that the changes it’s proposing for its 54-year-old pulp mill in Pictou County will make it “best in class.” Even the blurb that appears on the Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change page for the “mill transformation and effluent treatment facility project” includes the phrase “best in class.” And although Northern […]
Why isn’t Northern Pulp using the wastewater treatment plant next door at Canso Chemicals? Is mercury an issue?
Northern Pulp is using $450,000 dollars to sue Nova Scotians for what could be hundreds of millions of dollars, and the money for the litigation comes from the interim financing its creditor protection in the British Columbia Supreme Court affords it. But the Paper Excellence company doesn’t seem interested in spending any money to put […]
Corporate shell game
Northern Pulp seeks protection from creditors in a BC court — and its largest creditor is its owner, Paper Excellence
Northern Pulp — the mill in Pictou County — has gone into hibernation. And Northern Pulp — the company — is “insolvent.” It is one of seven related companies petitioning for creditor protection in the British Columbia Supreme Court, while it seeks “a plan of compromise or arrangement.” The petitioners seeking relief from debt payments, […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Canso Chemicals mystery: With the chemical plant long gone, why is the company still alive? And what about all that mercury pollution?
Canso Chemicals hasn’t produced any chemicals for 29 years, but — contrary to what I wrote in the Halifax Examiner in “Northern Pulp’s environmental documents: missing mercury, a pulp mill that never was, and oodles of contradictions” — the company lives on. Sort of. For two decades Canso Chemicals produced chlorine for the pulping process […]
Northern Pulp says it “cares” — but for whom and for what?
“We care,” says Northern Pulp on the website it has created to spread the word that it “cares about forestry families of Nova Scotia.” The site is a vehicle for the company’s letter-writing campaign to get people in the forestry sector to contact Premier Stephen McNeil, their MLA, MP, or even Canadian Senators to ask […]
John Hamm says he has no regrets about signing pulp mill lease
Former premier and long-time Northern Pulp Nova Scotia director John Hamm says he has no regrets about his 2002 decision to sign a 25-year lease agreement with a previous owner of the Pictou County mill when his Progressive Conservatives were in power. The Examiner tagged Hamm for a brief conversation Friday night following his appearance...