POPs go the Townships

>> The Sherbrooke trial of a Montreal man raises environmental alarm

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Photo by Jason Felker

Getting arrested was exactly what Roch Lanthier wanted, and arrested is what he got. The 57-year-old engineering consultant and Plateau resident’s eight-day trial in a Sherbrooke courthouse for obstruction of police duties during a demonstration last May wrapped up this week, and provided him with the platform he wanted to highlight the potential dangers of a nearby magnesium plant.
Lanthier believes that the $800-million Magnola plant, which opened last year in Danville, 60 kilometres north-west of Sherbrooke, and produces up to 60,000 tonnes of magnesium a year, will also produce up to 1,000 kilograms of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and spew up to 50 kilograms of the toxic stuff into the air, which could lead to serious harm to Township residents. Despite Canada’s ratifying of the UN Stockholm Convention on the restriction and eventual elimination of POP production—the first of 126 signatory countries to do so—Lanthier believes the Quebec Ministry of the Environment “rubber-stamped” the permit giving Magnolia the go-ahead in 1998. This despite the fact that the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) recommended against it, saying in a report that no POPs should be emitted, and it would prefer if none were produced.

As a member of the Collectif de luttes aux organochlorés (CLO), Lanthier claims his actions were justifiable as a necessary defence. “What we are saying,” he says, “and it’s obvious by our demonstrations, is that we are threatened by an extreme and immediate danger. We had no choice, because we’ve tried so many other things. We met with the government many times, we talked with people at the plant, we talked to locals. And we’re stuck with this stuff that’s poisoning us. Really, we’re almost panicking.”

The defence of necessity is unusual in that it admits illegal wrongdoing but claims mitigating circumstances override the rule of the law. Lanthier believes the threat posed to residents by the production of magnesium, which is made from asbestos tailings, justifies his actions. POPs, which include PCB dioxins, furans and hexachlorobenzene, enter the food chain through grass and have been linked to cancer and reproductive complications. The problem worsens as POPs enter the atmosphere through morning dew evaporation and migrate northwards. “It’s a grasshopper effect,” he says. “It’s gradually going to get stuck with the northern population. The Cree and Inuit are going to suffer from its effects.”

Carole McKenty, spokesperson for the CLO, lays much of the blame with the Quebec government. “Our fight is not against industry, it’s against government collusion with industry,” she says. “The Quebec government is acting as a partner, not a watchdog. Now we have to take the role of watchdog. That’s how we see ourselves.” A Quebec government corporation, the Société générale de financement du Québec, owns 20 per cent of the Magnolia plant.

A spokesperson for the Quebec Ministry of Environment, Hélène Beauchêsne, says there was effective public consultation. “The BAPE made some recommendations which resulted in a decree in April 1998,” she says, “and those recommendations were integrated after public consultations. There were conditions for follow-up studies, which have existed since the beginning and will continue.” Meaning Magnola, whose representatives were unavailable for comment by presstime, must submit monthly environmental reports to the Ministry of Environment.

Lanthier says a verdict is expected no later than early July. :