Judge reserves decision in Lafarge tire-burning
The lawyer for a residents group that opposes Lafarge Canada’s plan to burn discarded tires to fuel its cement kiln says ministerial approval of the pilot project was flawed.
“The decision does not fall within a reasonable range of acceptable limits,” lawyer William Mahody argued at a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judicial review in Halifax on Tuesday.
“The environmental assessment is based on research into something other than this whole-tire burning process.”
Lafarge Canada has proposed a one-year pilot project to burn 400,000 discarded tires in a kiln at its plant near Brookfield, Colchester County. Environment Minister Iain Rankin approved the environment assessment for the pilot project last July.
The residents’ group, many of whom had fought successfully to scuttle a similar plan more than a decade ago, filed notice in August for a judicial review of Rankin’s decision. In December, Justice Denise Boudreau heard arguments about whether to allow Ontario toxicological expert Doug Hallett to submit evidence for the citizens group at the review. Boudreau ruled in January that Hallett’s report would not be permitted.
Sean Foreman and John Keith, respective lawyers for the Environment Department and Lafarge, argued Tuesday that Rankin made his decision based on the assessment evidence provided him.
At day’s end, Justice James Chipman said he would consider the arguments made Tuesday and the briefs submitted earlier before delivering a written decision later this month.
Foreman and Keith both argued that the Dalhouse University research that figured prominently in that minister’s decision did not have to provide an environmental guarantee for the project to go forward.
“No one is saying that we have a complete set of science here in Nova Scotia at the Lafarge plant,” said Foreman. “How can we approve this when we don’t have 100 per cent science to support it? That is not a requirement and it is not the minister’s focus.
“The minister made that difficult decision after consulting all the evidence and he applied stringent conditions.”
Keith called the pilot project an important “environmental experiment.”
Not exactly reassuring words for Fred Blois, who lives in Clifton, about 10 kilometres from the plant as the crow flies.
“We’re used as a test case, we’re an experiment,” said Blois, who complains along with others in the residents group that toxic dioxins and furans will be emitted from the smoke stack if Lafarge burns tires, toxins that they argue can adversely affect the health of people living 100 kilometres from the plant.
“If you look at one of the bases of the Environment Act of Nova Scotia, the precautionary principle figures very prominently and it rails against that, it states that decisions shouldn’t be made on an experimental basis. Everything should be proven before the project takes place, at the instigator’s expense.”
The residents had hoped that Hallett’s report would be allowed, focusing among other points on the argument that when tires are burned, they emit the cancer-causing chemical NDMA (N-nitrosodimethylamine), which was very prevalent in a large tire fire in Hagersville, Ont.