Sludge Watch ==> Ontario-Paper Sludge Warning Ignored by Ministry

[maureen.reilly at sympatico.ca]

Sludgewatch Admin:

The problem is that the Ministry isn't telling the whole truth. They did 
groundwater tests under
sludge sites...and found a whole plume of contamination at the paper sludge 
site on Kawartha Downs, they found groundwater contamination at the Oshawa 
gun berm...and they didn't test groundwater under any other berms that I 
know of.

They just refuse to publish those test results.

......................................................................................


www.stcatharinesstandard.ca web site Tuesday, June 27, 2006

St. Catharines Standard Ontario Canada
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sludge warning ignored

Matthew Van Dongen

Saturday, June 24, 2006 - 01:00

Local News - Ontario’s environment commissioner says the provincial 
government has repeatedly ignored his calls to regulate Sound-Sorb.

Gord Miller, who monitors compliance by provincial ministries with the 
Environmental Bill of Rights, highlighted concerns about paper fibre sludge 
in a 2002-2003 report.

“This is an issue I’ve talked about for five or six years,” Miller said 
Friday. “It’s a mystery to me why the (Environment) ministry doesn’t 
regulate (Sound-Sorb) as it does other industrial wastes.

“It seems to defy logic.”

However, ministry spokesman John Steele said the ministry reviews, but isn’t 
required to implement, recommendations from the environment commissioner.

Sound-Sorb is a mixture of sand and paper fibre biosolids, the waste sludge 
produced as a paper recycling byproduct.

Empire Agri-Services Inc., a contractor for Abitibi Consolidated in Thorold, 
is piling 20,000 tonnes of the sludge in a berm on a Pelham property to 
muffle noise from a nearby rail line.

Pelham residents worried about odour and water contamination have complained 
to the provincial Ministry of the Environment.

Local ministry officials say the sludge is exempt from provincial 
regulations because the federally trademarked Sound-Sorb is considered a 
product, rather than a waste.

That reasoning is “strained, circular and very unconvincing,” according to 
Miller’s 2003 report.

“There are far less troubling materials that are regulated as waste by the 
ministry,” he said Friday.

For example, wood chips and sawdust produced at sawmills.

The report notes the ministry regulates the straight application of paper 
sludge waste on land, yet exempts the same material when mixed with sand.

Miller’s report calls that a “very large and troubling discrepancy” and 
suggests the Environment Ministry has “mishandled the Sound-Sorb issue 
repeatedly since 1999.”

The ministry’s response to the report said extensive studying of Sound-Sorb 
had found “no adverse environmental impacts.”

The ministry also supports recycling waste into other products provided the 
“impact on the environment and human health is benign.”

Three years later, all studies still point to Sound-Sorb being safe for the 
environment, Steele said Friday.

An expert panel commissioned by the province in 2005 said the ministry 
doesn’t have to ban the use of Sound-Sorb.

However, the panel also made other recommendations, including:

the use of paper sludge mixed with sand in berms should be controlled by 
Ministry of the Environment certificates of approval;

sludge materials should be composted before being used in a berm.

a hydrogeological assessment should be done on any site considered for a 
Sound-Sorb berm;

existing berms should have hydrogeological assessments done and monitoring 
programs established.

None of those recommendations has been implemented.

“All I can say at this point is we are reviewing the series of 
recommendations from the expert panel,” Steele said.

That review should be finished “in the not too distant future.”

Pelham Mayor Ron Leavens spoke to Environment Minister Laurel Broten 
Thursday by phone and asked her to implement the recommendations of the 
expert panel.

Leavens had previously asked Broten to meet with municipal officials in 
Pelham and view the growing pile of sludge at 325 Church St.

“She told me senior staff were working on it (the review). but she didn’t 
make any commitments,” Leavens said.

“I look on it positively, that they’re moving in the right direction.”

Leavens said he reiterated his request for a face-to-face meeting with 
Broten and representatives of concerned residents.