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We have no reason to trust NorskeCanada - Michael Ableman |
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Cowichan News Leader
Feb 11, 2004
"After nearly three months of intensive research interviewing dozens of
independent experts — including pulp mill engineers, public health
workers, Norske employees, air emissions and toxics experts, and even
those who will supply it’s “alternative” fuels — it is clear the
Crofton facility has catastrophic problems. The mill lacks properly
functioning pollution controls, and presents serious health and
environmental risks to local communities."
We have no reason to trust NorskeCanada
Cowichan News Leader
Feb 11, 2004
Dear Editor,
Don McKendrick’s portrait of Norske’s Crofton mill contradicts the facts.
After nearly three months of intensive research interviewing dozens of
independent experts — including pulp mill engineers, public health
workers, Norske employees, air emissions and toxics experts, and even
those who will supply it’s “alternative” fuels — it is clear the
Crofton facility has catastrophic problems. The mill lacks properly
functioning pollution controls, and presents serious health and
environmental risks to local communities.
McKendrick and Norske’s PR firm have once again assumed they are
dealing with a public that is ignorant, uninformed, and easily
manipulated. The letter reinforces the company’s patronizing attitude,
essentially telling us to “trust us, we are the experts”. But that
trust has been violated. This time the community is well-organized,
well-informed, and it is standing up to say it has had enough.
McKendrick’s presentation of the company as caring and sensitive to
health and the environment flies in the face of a well-researched Nov.
27 national report by Pollution Watch that rates Norske as one of the
top 10 polluters of dioxins in the entire country.
Individuals who work at, or have worked at, the Crofton facility
continue to contact us with information that presents a picture of a
facility that is old, poorly maintained, and with equipment which does
not function properly. We are told there are serious deficiencies with
testing and reporting of emissions, and that the company’s data and
reporting are suspect.
Contrary to Mr. McKendrick’s claims of improved air quality, citizens
living in the airshed of the mill continuously report air quality is
declining and that living in the airshed is becoming a serious
liability. Some are even selling their homes and moving.
If, as his letter suggests, Mr. McKendrick is concerned that we
separate “fact” from “rhetoric” why has the company not agreed to the
simple demand for an independent baseline study of the impacts of the
mill? This is a basic step that most jurisdictions would require before
allowing a facility like this to operate, let alone burn toxic waste.
McKendrick’s comment on how many people work at the mill is an
underhanded way of suggesting we have to choose between our health and
our jobs. No community should ever have to make that decision, they
should be able to have both.
The company has been put on notice by the community to clean up its
act. Rather than spending its resources playing public relations games
I would suggest it deal with us honestly, do the computer modeling and
baseline study so that we know what its impacts are, and take the steps
to correct those impacts in a sincere and forthright manner.
The air and the water belong to all of us, no one company has the right
to hijack those commons and place the health of the community at risk.
—Michael Ableman
Saltspring Island
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Letters