Canadian Smelters Say They Will Cut Toxic Emissions
Reuters) – A Canadian mining industry group said on Friday it expects smelters, which regularly release large amounts of toxic waste into the air, would meet voluntary goals to sharply reduce emissions within the decade. Read More
Reuters) – A Canadian mining industry group said on Friday it expects smelters, which regularly release large amounts of toxic waste into the air, would meet voluntary goals to sharply reduce emissions within the decade.
Justyna Laurie-Lean, vice-president of environment and health for the Mining Association of Canada, told Reuters the industry expects to cut smelter emissions by 80 percent by 2008 from total levels recorded in the mid-1990s — a goal set out in its “ARET” program to reduce emissions of heavy metals such as lead, mercury, nickel compounds, arsenic and cadmium.
“It looks like the 80 percent target is achievable by 2008,” Laurie-Lean said.
“We’re already around 70 percent,” she said at a workshop sponsored by Environment Canada, the federal environment ministry, to find ways to make the smelters pollute less.
The Canadian Environmental Defence Fund, an environmental lobby group, said in 1998 the smelters released more than 2.3 million pounds of heavy metals, all of them highly poisonous and harmful to people’s health.
The fund was quoting information provided by mining groups to a consultant for Environment Canada for a study released at the meeting, which concluded with the formation of an environment-industry advisory group on how to cut pollution.
“They have made progress in the past 10 years, and we want that to continue,” said Patrick Finlay, chief of the minerals and metals division at the ministry’s pollution prevention office.
The fund said the worst polluter was Inco Ltd., the western world’s largest nickel miner, which released 1.1 million pounds of heavy metals into the environment from its facilities in Ontario and Manitoba.
It also listed Noranda Inc., Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting Co., a unit of Anglo American Plc, Falconbridge Ltd. and Cominco Ltd. as major polluters.
Ranked by facility, the fund said Inco’s Copper Cliff operation in Sudbury, Ontario, was a major polluter, followed by Noranda’s Horne smelter in Quebec, Hudson Bay’s Flin Flon smelter in Manitoba, Inco’s Thompson operation in Manitoba, Falconbridge’s Kidd Creek facility in Ontario and Cominco’s Trail zinc operation in British Columbia.
One conference participant, who asked not to be named, doubted claims the industry would meet its goals by 2008.
“Some of it is technically challenging. There are also the laggard companies,” he said, noting some firms had spent heavily to upgrade expensive equipment to reduce pollution while others had not.
Burkhard Mausberg, executive director of the fund, said his group would push to have a Canada-wide standard for pollution, instead of today’s various provincial standards.
“There should be one set of minimal protection standards for all Canadians,” he said.
Story by Irene Marushko. © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
