Clinker dust concerns canal area residents
Residents of a St. Catharines neighbourhood want answers about what’s in the air they’re breathing after raising concerns with authorities about clinker dust settling on their properties.
The dust, used in the manufacture of Portland cement, is being unloaded from ships, piled up and trucked out by a company operating on the Welland Canal north of Lakeshore Road. Residents have complained dust from the Port Weller Marine Terminal is covering their homes, cars and gardens.
“We don’t know what’s in the air we’re breathing down here,” said David DeRocco, president of the Port Weller Residents Association, adding it’s been a growing concern in the area because clinker dust is toxic.
“And they’re shipping it through the city. We don’t know how many people they’re affecting.”
The city said it was approached by residents in late 2017 with concerns about clinker dust appearing on their properties. It raised those concerns with Quebec Stevedoring Co. Ltd., St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. which leases out the land to the company, and the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.
The city said Quebec Stevedoring Co. Ltd. prepared a dust mitigation plan approved by the environment ministry and has worked on implementing dust suppression measures on the pile and the roads on the site. Trucks are now loaded within a building and barrier walls have been constructed.
But residents say it’s not working.
“This dust is blowing into the canal. It’s blowing into the lake. It’s blowing on people’s houses. It’s getting into Malcolmson Park,” DeRocco said.
“People’s homes are being covered in dust and we can’t get answers.”
The city said the company has told it it’s willing to work with residents and has offered property and vehicle-washing services to residents if there are further issues.
But resident Ken Dobson said the issue is getting worse, not better.
“I don’t care about getting some dirt on my house, it’s my lungs I’m more worried about.”
Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change staff conducted air monitoring for inhalable particulate matter at the canal between Nov. 21 and Dec. 31. Ministry spokesman Gary Wheeler said the results were within Ontario’s ambient air quality criteria.
The ministry conducted further air monitoring in late April to measure dust fall and total particulate matter at the site. Wheeler said the ministry is awaiting those sample results.
Bruce Graham, vice-president of Great Lakes Stevedoring, which is owned by Quebec Stevedoring, a partner in the Port Weller Marine Terminal, said the company gets testing results and is exceeding ministry expectations. He said what it is doing is safe.
“We believe we are being good neighbours,” Graham said.
Graham said he’s been meeting with a lot of residents individually about concerns over the past three years since the company started working with clinker dust.
He said more than two years ago, there was a wind event that caused dusting of some homes. He said the wind came up over a short period of time as a vessel was unloaded before the company had a chance to secure the pile. He said the company immediately responded and washed off the homes that were affected and the feedback he got was positive because it responded so quickly.
“Since that time we put in a whole bunch of new measures to make sure that couldn’t repeat itself, and it hasn’t,” Graham said.
Those measures have included loading material inside warehouses and covering it with a tarp. Graham said workers water down the pile and it forms a crust to keep the dust under control, but the tarp gives residents an extra feeling of security.
The company has six to eight people working when there are no vessels, which climbs to as many as 30 people when vessels are unloading.
The clinker dust is trucked to Woodstock for use in decorative, light concrete products.
“We’re trying each day to find new best practices and so far over the last couple years, we believe we’ve been very successful,” Graham said.