Pond sampling done after former mill worker says he dumped mercury in hidden pit

 

A northern Ontario First Nation plagued by decades of mercury poisoning from a pulp and paper mill will get the results on Monday of a recent provincial government inspection of the mill site.

The testing was done on June 6 after a former worker at the mill described his work in the 1970s, dumping barrels of mercury into a plastic-lined pit. The pit did not fit the description of contaminated sites known to government.

The former worker’s allegations came to light just weeks after a government-funded report by research scientists showed an on-going source of mercury contamination in the waterways between the mill and Grassy Narrows First Nation.

“Three samples were taken at the Dryden wood waste site — two leachate collection pond samples and another from the cooling water channel,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change told CBC News. 

The results will be released to people in Grassy Narrows when the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation visit the community on Monday.

Their visit comes as Premier Kathleen Wynne pledges to “get to the bottom” of the mercury reports.

The First Nation is asking for its own access to the mill site to search for the hidden mercury dump and test for contamination in the river upstream and downstream of the mill.

They also want an immediate clean up of all the mercury, including the nine tonnes that are known to have been dumped in the English-Wabigoon River by Reed Paper in Dryden, between 1962 and 1970.

“It has been too many meetings, too much talking and not enough to actually do something concrete for our people,” said Grassy Narrows environmental health coordinator Judy DaSilva.

Wynne said she needs further information about whether a clean up is advisable because, she said previous reports show that disturbing the mercury already in the river could increase the contamination levels.