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Port Wallace Gamble: the real estate boom meets Nova Scotia’s toxic mine legacy

Part 4. The provincial government has taken over control of the Port Wallace 'special planning area' to fast-track development, but what about toxic tailings in Barry’s Run and other risks to the area?

April 13, 2022 By Joan Baxter 2 Comments

In March 2020, the Halifax Examiner published the award-winning series, “Port Wallace Gamble: the real estate boom meets Nova Scotia’s toxic mine legacy.” The three articles (available here, here and here) looked at Clayton Developments’ proposed new and massive subdivision for Port Wallace in Dartmouth, and serious concerns about the mercury and arsenic contamination from […]

Filed Under: City Hall, Environment, Featured, Politics, Province House Tagged With: affordable housing, Allison Clark, arsenic, Barry's Run, Brynn Budden, City of Lakes, Clayton Developments, climate change, contaminated sites, Dartmouth, Deborah Bayer, Department of Environment and Climate Change, Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Department of Natural Resources and Renewables, Doug Skinner, Executive Panel on Housing in HRM, Forest Hills Extension, gold mining, Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), health risk assessment, Highway 118, history mine tailings, housing, human health risk assessment, Ikea, John Lohr, Joshua Kurek, Krista Higdon, Lake Charles, Lake Mic Mac, Lake Williams, mercury, Mic Mac Mall, Michael Parsons, mine tailings, Mitchell's Brook, Montague gold mines, Mount Allison University, Nova Scotia Lands, Port Wallace, Port Wallace Holdings, Sam Austin, Shannon Park, Shaw Group, Southdalte Mount Hope special planning area, special planning area, The Parks of Port Wallace, Tim Houston, Tony Mancini, Tracy Barron, traffic congestion, Waverley Road

Public paying the price to clean up old gold mines

Anaconda Mining says the province indemnified it from any liabilities associated with the toxic historic tailings in Goldboro, and plans to mine around them, while Nova Scotians pay to clean them up.

March 23, 2022 By Joan Baxter 1 Comment

  The gold rush in Upper Seal Harbour near Goldboro began with the discovery of gold in 1892 by a fellow named Howard Richardson. For the next 65 years, gold miners dug rock out of the earth in what was known as the “Richardson Belt” on the banks of Gold Brook Lake in Guysborough County. […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, Province House Tagged With: Anaconda Mining, arsenic, CBC, Dartmouth, Department of Natural Resources and Renewables (DNRR), Department of Public Works, Eastern Shore, Gold Brook, Gold Brook Lake, gold mining, Goldboro, Goldenville, Guysborough County, historic mines, Howard Richardson, indemnification, Kevin Bullock, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Lower Seal Harbour gold district, mercury, Michael Gorman, Mike Parsons, mine remediation, mine tailings, Montague gold mines, Municipality of the District of Guysborough, Nova Scotia Environment and Climate Change (NSECC), Nova Scotia Lands, Orex Exploration, Pieridae Energy, SEDAR, Sherbrooke, Upper Seal Harbour gold mining district

What are Paper Excellence’s real plans for Northern Pulp?

This week two men presented the company’s plans for a “complete transformation” of the the mill at a special Pictou Town Council meeting. They faced persistent questions and made some telling comments that do not bode well for Nova Scotia.

July 21, 2021 By Joan Baxter 10 Comments

Paper Excellence is on a desperate charm offensive in Nova Scotia, trying to build “trust,” get support to refit and re-open its Pictou County Northern Pulp mill, make people believe that the company has somehow transformed itself overnight, and convince us all to forget its many egregious environmental, social, and political transgressions and bullying tactics. […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured Tagged With: A’se’K, Biodiversity Act, Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Act, Bowater lands, British Columbia, Caribou Harbour, Chief Andrea Paul, COunty of Pictou Council, creditor protection, Crown land, Cumberland Forestry Advisory Committee, Dale Paterson, Darrell Dexter, Duff Montgomerie, Effluent Treatment Facility, Environmental Liaison Committee, Forest Nova Scotia, GI Smith, Graham Kissack, Jerry Dias, Jim Ryan, Ken Swain, Melinda MacKenzie, Nadine LeBlanc, NDP government, Northern Pulp, Northern pulp creditor protection, Nova Scotia Lands, Paper Excellence, Pedro Chang, pension plan, Pensions, Pictou, Pictou Harbour, Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN), Pictou Town Council, pipeline, pulp effluent, pulp mill, Resolute Forest Products, Robert Stanfield, Scott Maritimes Limited Agreement Act, Stellarton Town Council, Stephen McNeil, Supreme Court of British Columbia, Unifor, Wagner Forest Management, Wentworth Valley, WestFor Management, Westville Town Council

Port Wallace Gamble: the real estate boom meets Nova Scotia’s toxic mine legacy

Part 1: The making of a toxic mess and the uncalculated costs of previous gold rushes.

March 1, 2020 By Joan Baxter 4 Comments

This is Part 1 of a three-part story about the toxic legacy from historic gold mines in Nova Scotia, which its citizens will be paying many millions of dollars to try to clean up, and how the contamination at just one of these sites — Montague Mines in HRM — is still affecting lives today, […]

Filed Under: City Hall, Environment, Featured, Investigation, News, Province House Tagged With: Alexander Heatherington, arsenic from mining, Atlantic Gold, Barry's Run, Canadian Extractive Industries Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA), Clayton Developments, Cochrane Hill gold mine, Damas Touquoy, Department of Energy and Mines (DEM), Department of Lands and Forestry (DLF), Francis Paul, gold mining, gold mining pollution, Goldenville, James Paul, John Drage, John Hartlen, John Pulsiver, Kerry Rowe, Lake Charles, Lake Loon, Linda Campbell, Lisa Jarrett, mercury, Michael Parsons, mine tailings, Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS), Mitchell Brook, Montague Mines, Moose River gold mine, Nova Scotia Auditor General Michael Pickup, Nova Scotia Lands, Paul Paul, Raymond Plourde, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, St. Barbara Limited, Touquoy mine

Auditor General: $2 billion QEII redevelopment at risk for fraud

December 11, 2019 By Jennifer Henderson

The province’s auditor general released a critical report yesterday that looked at the $2 billion project to expand the Halifax Infirmary and build a new Community Outpatient Centre at Bayers Lake to replace the decrepit Victoria General and Centennial buildings. Michael Pickup’s strongest criticism and first recommendation declared: “The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal...

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Filed Under: Featured, News, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: Auditor General Michael Pickup, Deloitte, fraud, Halifax Infirmary, Lindsay Construction, MLA Susan Leblanc, Nova Scotia Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal (TIR), Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA), Nova Scotia Lands, PC leader Tim Houston, QEII New Generation Project, TIR

Boat Harbour: How to clean up a toxic soup

August 2, 2019 By Jennifer Henderson

Fifty-two years of toxic sludge — enough to fill 400 Olympic-sized swimming pools to the brim. That’s the cleanup job now in the late planning stages for Boat Harbour. Boat Harbour is an expanse of stanky brown holding ponds or “lagoons” at an effluent treatment facility located next-door to the Pictou Landing First Nation. “Nova...

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Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News, Province House, Subscribers only Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Christine Skirth, Ken Swain, Northern Pulp cleanup, Nova Scotia Lands

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.

November 3, 2018 By Joan Baxter 8 Comments

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, […]

Filed Under: Environment, Featured, News Tagged With: Boat Harbour, Boat Harbour Act, Boat Harbour remediation project, Bruce Nunn, Chief Andrea Paul, Chief Dan Paul, Christine Skirth, Environment Minister Margaret Miller, GHD, Kathy Cloutier, Ken Swain, Mi’kmaq of Pictou Landing, Northern Pulp, Northern Pulp cleanup, Northern Pulp effluent leak, Nova Scotia Environment, Nova Scotia Lands, Pictou County, Pictou Landing First Nation, Rachel Boomer, Stephen McNeil, Sydney Tar Ponds, William Palmer

PRICED OUT

A collage of various housing options in HRM, including co-ops, apartment buildings, shelters, and tents
PRICED OUT is the Examiner’s investigative reporting project focused on the housing crisis.

You can learn about the project, including how we’re asking readers to direct our reporting, our published articles, and what we’re working on, on the PRICED OUT homepage.

2020 mass murders

Nine images illustrating the locations, maps, and memorials of the mass shootings

All of the Halifax Examiner’s reporting on the mass murders of April 18/19, 2020, and recent articles on the Mass Casualty Commission and newly-released documents.

Updated regularly.

Uncover: Dead Wrong

In 1995, Brenda Way was brutally murdered behind a Dartmouth apartment building. In 1999, Glen Assoun was found guilty of the murder. He served 17 years in prison, but steadfastly maintained his innocence. In 2019, Glen Assoun was fully exonerated.

Halifax Examiner founder and investigative journalist Tim Bousquet has followed the story of Glen Assoun's wrongful conviction for over five years. Now, Bousquet tells that story as host of Season 7 of the CBC podcast series Uncover: Dead Wrong.

Click here to go to listen to the podcast, or search for CBC Uncover on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast aggregator.

The Tideline, with Tara Thorne

Two young white women, one with dark hair and one blonde, smile at the camera on a sunny spring day.

Episode 79 of The Tideline, with Tara Thorne, is published.

Grace McNutt and Linnea Swinimer are the Minute Women, two Haligonians who host a podcast of the same name about Canadian history as seen through a lens of Heritage Minutes (minutewomenpodcast.ca). In a lively celebration of the show’s second birthday, they stop by to reveal how curling brought them together in podcast — and now BFF — form, their favourite Minutes, that time they thought Jean Chretien was dead, and the impact their show has had. Plus music from brand-new ECMA winners Hillsburn and Zamani.

Listen to the episode here.

Check out some of the past episodes here.

Subscribe to the podcast to get episodes automatically downloaded to your device — there’s a great instructional article here. Email Suzanne for help.

You can reach Tara here.

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