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Risky business >> Thanks to a loophole in regulations, Quebec now has its own PCB incinerator--whether we like it or not by PHILIP PREVILLE
Canada now has a second incinerator for burning PCB-contaminated soil. And it's here in Quebec. Located in St-Ambroise, a town of 3,500 near Chicoutimi, the Récupère-Sol incinerator is currently receiving and burning 6,500 tonnes of PCB-contaminated soil shipped from Toronto. And it's doing so despite the fact that a Quebec government commission cast doubt upon the validity of the test burns conducted there last year. In addition, the community didn't even find out about the plan to burn PCBs until after the tests were already complete. "The Bouchard government totally sold us out," says Laurice Nadeau of the Comité des citoyens de St-Ambroise. "Now we have our own Swan Hills. But we're not interested in having a Swan Hills, thank you very much." Nadeau's citizens group is circulating a petition, which currently has over 4,000 signatures, demanding a halt to the importation of PCBs into the region. But it's not just the Saguenay region that should be concerned. Environmental organizations believe the Quebec government, which continues to loosen its regulations, is turning Quebec into the PCB dumping ground for Canada, possibly for the world. "It's my reading that the Quebec government wanted the incinerator to be located there," says Daniel Green of the Société pour vaincre la pollution (SVP). "The message the government is sending is, 'Quebec is a friendly place for this kind of activity.'" --@-- Nothing angers Laurice Nadeau more than when the incinerator's security latch opens up, releasing a stream of thick black smoke--filled with the products of incomplete combustion--that continues for up to two hours. The latch opens only when the pressure inside the incinerator becomes too high; since the incinerator first started operating six weeks ago, its security latch has opened three times. This, he says, is not what the community expected at all. When Vancouver-based Bennett Environmental Inc. purchased the Récupère-Sol operation in 1996 and installed a new incinerator, no one thought anything of it at first. "We thought they would simply continue burning hydrocarbons [oils and gasolines] like they did before," Nadeau says. One year later, Bennett applied for a permit to incinerate PCB-contaminated soil. The company conducted test burns last August and received their permit in October, with a little help from what Green calls "a disingenuous distinction" in Quebec's environmental regulations. In Quebec, PCB-contaminated concrete and metals are considered "hazardous wastes," but contaminated soil is not. Since Bennett applied solely for a license to burn soil, they did not have to conduct a thorough environmental impact assessment, nor were they required to hold public hearings. In November, Bennett announced that it had secured the contract to burn soil shipped from a General Electric plant in Toronto. The Ontario government first ordered GE to clean its site in 1985; the soil there was highly contaminated, with concentrations often exceeding 20,000 parts per million (ppm). In Ontario, soil exceeding 50 ppm is considered hazardous waste. When St-Ambroise residents found out what was going on, Nadeau says, they were furious. In response to public pressure, the government appointed a commission to investigate the issue. The commission recommended that the test burns conducted in August be declared "non-representative," and that the government place a moratorium on the incinerator's operation until new tests could be conducted. New test burns will be conducted starting next week, but since Bennett received its permit legally, Quebec has no power to impose a moratorium. Instead, it requested that Bennett voluntarily halt operations; the company refused because "The financial viability of the operation was at stake," says Bennett spokesman Gilles Beauregard. Beauregard insists that the St-Ambroise incinerator is "the best technology in the world," though he admits the security latch may have opened on occasion. He adds: "The commission was a kangaroo court... We are the only company in the world to publish all our test protocols and all our results." SVP's Green disagrees. SVP filed an access to information request to obtain the test burn results, and a number of documents--including one which detailed soil composition--were withheld because they were considered trade secrets. "I don't see what's so secret about soil composition," Green says. He plans to go to court to get the information. Caroline Drouin, spokesperson for Environment Minister Paul Bégin, says the government has taken all necessary precautions in St-Ambroise: "It's the government's role to ensure that there are no environmental problems. That's what we've done." But the people in the Saguenay region no longer trust the environment ministry. On Jan. 21, they blockaded the highway with signs that read: "The Saguenay is not a garbage can--Keep your shit." --@-- The burning of PCBs has a long and sordid history in Quebec. Previously used as lubricants in electrical transformers, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are highly resistant to natural biodegradation. When PCBs make their way into the water table and the food chain, the organisms that consume them accumulate ever-increasing concentrations in their bodies. When burned in the open air, they release dioxins and furans--which are known to cause cancer--into the environment. After a PCB storage site in St-Basile-le-Grand caught fire in 1989, the government improved storage. "If there's one thing we know how to do in Quebec," says Green, "it's how to store PCBs." But no container lasts forever. Ultimately, it is the government's policy to destroy all PCBs in the province. Incinerators such as the one in St-Ambroise, when they operate without incident, destroy up to 99.99 per cent of all harmful emissions. The St-Ambroise incinerator does not have a permit to incinerate pure PCBs; the company did apply for a permit to burn hazardous wastes other than soil, but withdrew its application following the public outcry. Nevertheless, over 2,000 tonnes of contaminated soil remain in St-Basile, and another 450,000 from across Canada are currently stored in a LaSalle landfill. While no plans have been made for their destruction as of yet, Green says St-Ambroise is the cheapest and most logical option. "Eventually, the government may become a Bennett client," Green says. "How can a client also be the regulator? The government may end up in a conflict of interest situation." For its part, Bennett wants to burn as much soil in St-Ambroise as possible. According to a Bennett press release issued after it received its permit, "The company believes that there is a significant market for its remediation services now that the upgraded permit has been received." The press release says there are currently three million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated soil in Canada, and over 34 million in the United States. *** Who's in charge here? How Quebec is becoming the dumping ground for the world's PCBs 1. Quebec's waybill system for tracking hazardous wastes has been scrapped. Last Dec. 1, Quebec dismantled its online system for tracking the transportation of hazardous waste. Previously, trucks could not hit the road without a government-issued waybill number. The waybill system was used to prevent "midnight dumping," whereby companies illegally dumped wastes in remote areas. Waybills also ensured that waste disposal companies were receiving only those wastes for which they had a permit. Case in point: prior to receiving their permit, Récupère-Sol in St-Ambroise received shipments of PCB-contaminated concrete. Officials were tipped off by the waybill system and served Récupère-Sol with a Notice of Violation within a week (the issue is currently under investigation). Now that the waybill system has been scrapped, says Alain Boutin of Quebec's environment ministry, such enforcement would be impossible. Ontario and other provinces continue to maintain waybill systems. 2. In Quebec, PCB-contaminated soil is not considered "hazardous waste." In other provinces, soil with PCB concentrations of over 50 parts per million (ppm) are considered hazardous. In Quebec, while contaminated concrete and metals over 50 ppm are considered hazardous, soil is never classified as hazardous no matter how high the concentration. Quebec adopted this distinction because when a minor spill does happen, the government wants to clean it up quickly without bureaucratic interference. But what was once a reasonable exception has now become a loophole for waste management companies. It allowed Bennett Environmental to get its St-Ambroise permit without public consultation. The same loophole allowed another company, Cintec, to landfill PCB-contaminated soil in LaSalle. Environmentalists worry that the loophole could lead to further complications. Hypothetically, companies storing pure PCBs have only to pour them onto soil to have them considered "non-hazardous," making disposal cheaper and easier. 3. Budgets and staff for environmental enforcement, or "green police," have been slashed dramatically. As reported in The Gazette last October, since 1994 the budget for Quebec's environmental protection bureaucracy has been slashed by 65 per cent, from $151 million to $53 million. In Montreal and Quebec City, green police have been cut from 72 officers to 21. And the environment ministry has eliminated its legal services branch: there are no longer any crown prosecutors specializing in environmental legislation. 4. Canada accepts the hazardous waste of other countries. According to Environment Canada, the Canadian border is currently open to all other nations for the import of PCB waste, provided that the imports are approved by the province of destination. (The Canada-U.S. border is currently closed due to a decision by an American court.) Since Quebec does not consider contaminated soil to be hazardous waste, it is unclear whether the provincial government could refuse such imports. "There is a great concern that we may be treated as a third-world country, with our laws relaxed and our borders open," says Gary Gallon of the Canadian Institute for Business and the Environment.
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Until now, only one incinerator in Canada has been permitted to burn PCBs. Since it first started operating in 1987, the Bovar Inc. incinerator near Swan Hills, Alta. has experienced numerous leaks and explosions. Among other complications, natives living on a reserve downstream from the incinerator have been warned not to eat fish from the river.