The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Mill seeking new environmental assessment
Northern Pulp is taking another swing at getting an effluent treatment plant built.
In documents filed Tuesday with the British Columbia Supreme Court, the company states that it will file a project description by May 13 with the provincial Environment Department, thereby starting a new environmental assessment process.
“(Northern Pulp has) made significant progress in satisfying their obligations under the Ministerial Orders, revising designs and plans for the new replacement effluent treatment facility project to include stakeholder concerns expressed by the Environmental Liaison Committee, and initiating discussions with the Province on the environmental approval process,” reads an affidavit by mill manager Bruce Chapman.
The move by Northern Pulp will restart the battle over the mill's future as newly minted Premier Iain Rankin gears up for his first election at the helm of the Liberal government.
A coalition of environmentalists, the Pictou Landing First Nation, fishermen and concerned citizens successfully fought Northern Pulp's last plan to replace the Boat Harbour Effluent Treatment Plant with a new facility. The mill has been in hot idle since then-premier Stephen Macneil refused to extend the Boat Harbour Act past January 2020. That Act legislated the closure of the provincial government-owned effluent treatment plant adjacent to the Pictou Landing First Nation, where the mill had been dumping their effluent for half a century.
In February, the mill's environmental liaison committee, which includes community members, fishermen and former mill staff, drafted a report acknowledging that the mill had lost the trust of much of the surrounding community.
“… Mill management was perceived to believe the mill was too important to fail,” reads the report.
“It was evident to stakeholders over the last number of years that managing its environmental performance (perceived or real) and maintaining a strong social license to operate were not as important to management as maintaining mill production.”
Details are scant on how Northern Pulp intends to alter its proposed effluent treatment facility in the documents that were filed as part of an application to seek an extension of current creditor protection.
SALTWIRE NETWORK However, they do point to a much larger project than just the creation of a new effluent treatment facility (estimates for the cost of the latter is about $70 million). The documents note that an engineering firm has been hired to study:
• Converting the recovery boiler to a low odour configuration;
• Adding a tertiary treatment system to the previously proposed plan;
• Third party certification of the mill's environmental management system;
• Changing the processes they follow to make kraft pulp, including replacement of the power boiler venturi scrubber with a wet electrostatic precipitator to reduce the number of visible plumes emitting from the mill.
The environmental liaison committee's long list of recommendations includes the implementation of the Lahey Report recommendations for Crown Land on mill-owned land and consultation with the Pictou Landing First Nation on a mutually agreed upon plan to move forward.
The Pictou Landing First Nation did not provide representation on the environmental liaison committee.
Chapman's affidavit states Northern Pulp has money to keep running until July and asks the court to allow it to draw $6 million from a pot of money established by its parent company to fund its continued idle, its design of a new effluent treatment facility and pension payments to keep it going until December.
The affidavit notes that the mill intends to begin negotiations with the provincial government over its financial liability for cancelling its lease to the Boat Harbour Effluent Treatment Facility a decade early.
The affidavit states that the parent company is making its special top-up payments to its employee pension plans contingent upon “satisfactory progress” in these negotiations with the province.