Dishing the dirt

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by George Maddux

A new Web site that rates pollution levels in Canada's water, soil and air--based on Environment Canada data--offers the dirt on our local environment. Pollutionwatch.org suggests that Toronto pours the country's worst water, which contains 20 times Montreal's pollution levels. Canada's nastiest air gets sucked in by folks in Sarnia, Ontario, while our island's most polluted oxygen blows in St-Leonard, ranked 81 on the nation's most toxic. The most polluted soil lies in Moore, Ontario, followed by Jonquière, which boasts 30,000 times the toxins of Montreal's land (ranking 100 on the national list). Among the innumerable curiosities on the site--which allows surfers to analyze their local pollution levels by entering their postal code--is the finding that the air in Ville St-Laurent has 100 times the neurotoxins as that of Laval.

St-Leonard, Anjou and Pointe-Claire have become more polluted since 1994 while areas such as Montreal East and Dorval have cleaned up their acts. The site also names names, fingering Foamex Canada at 8350 Jeanne-Mance and Petro-Canada at 11701 Sherbrooke E. as particularly nasty local industrial polluters.

Still, the site likely gives urban dwellers a false sense of security. For example, the "cancer risk score" of Rouyn-Noranda is rated hundreds of times higher than ours, possibly because such sources of urban pollution as cars and smaller businesses are not factored in.