On the morning of July 15, Iris Communications’ Sean Lewis sent out a press release on behalf of Paper Excellence. It was chockablock with carefully calibrated and curated PR, informing us that Northern Pulp’s 54-year-old pulp mill in Pictou County was set to become “a “best-in-class operation” and “one of the world’s cleanest, most environmentally […]
The French Connection
People in southern France are battling pollution at a paper mill owned by a corporate behemoth: Paper Excellence Canada, the owner of the Northern Pulp Mill in Nova Scotia
They call their association the “Les Flamants Roses du Trébon” or LFRT (Flamingos of Trébon), and it’s a collective of residents in southern France who are fighting to have the six-decades-old Fibre Excellence Tarascon pulp mill in the province of Alpes-Côte d’Azur clean up its environmental act. French media report that the mill is owned […]
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 […]
Pulp Culture
How Nova Scotia’s Faustian bargain with the pulp industry may leave the sawmills in ruins
I wonder if Billy Freeman, a sixth generation saw-miller with 15 years experience, saw this juncture coming. A few weeks ago, Freeman, the process improvement manager at Harry Freeman and Son Ltd. in Greenfield, Nova Scotia wrote an illuminating op-ed in the Chronicle Herald supporting Northern Pulp in its request for an extension of the […]
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, Scotsburn Lumber, and U.S. tariffs
Morning File, Tuesday, January 8, 2019
News 1. Northern Pulp, Scotsburn Lumber, and U.S. tariffs Last month, Scotsburn Lumber sent out a letter encouraging “all our employers, contractors, business owners, forest landowners and associated suppliers to call or write a letter to your local or elected official” to express support for Northern Pulp Mill and its efforts to continue operating after […]