Federal-Provincial Assessment Review Panel for the
Halifax-Dartmouth Wastewater Management System
Volume 1, 22 March 1993 Halifax: Halifax Harbour Cleanup
Inc. 1994

Candace Malcolm, Metro Coalition for Harbour Cleanup: I would
like to clear up a small concern I have of a procedural nature. I
am very conscious that you, Madam Chair, mentioned that we
should not waste time in procedural concerns but I think it is
necessary that I so this before I begin my presentation on behalf
of MCHC. It relates to the way in which the Metro Coalition
proposes to go about providing information to the Panel and to
the public during these hearings.
[…] [W]ith our FEARO funding, the Metro Coalition has
commissioned four (4) technical reports and what we have done
in order to present those reports to the Panel and to the public
during these two weeks of hearings is to register the individuals
who prepared those reports to speak. They are technically MCHC
reports and that would take us outside the mandatory two (2)
sessions that I think each participant is allowed. What I would
like to clarify before I continue is that, in fact, there will be no
problem with the four (4) experts at separate technical sessions
presenting those reports.

The Chairperson:

We recognized that this problem could arise
and because the Coalition is made up of five (5) separate units
and of courses a great deal of effort has gone into the preparation
of this work to present a full range of views, it was seem that in
addition to the two (2) Coalition sessions itself plus your
concluding remarks that the individual units which make up the
Coalition could also present and there are opportunities which
have also been made use of for individuals to present individual
views outside of their Coalition efforts (118).

Mr. Ruffman: I am guessing, Madam Chair, that it is in the order
of probably eight (8) or nine (9).
Chairperson: Fine. I think we are within limits then. Does the
Coalition – or, pardon me. Does HHCI have any difficulty with
this? (119).
Candace Malcolm: One of the critical aspects of environmental
review as it has so far developed is the participation not just of
governments and the proponents of projects but of the public as
well. But by definition “the public” is a diverse array of
individuals with different interests, different levels of knowledge
and expertise, and unique concerns.
The individuals who comprise that public are usually not in a
position to have the resources, such as time and dollars, to
expend on scrutinizing projects such as the control of pollution in
Halifax Harbour, even when those projects will have an enormous
effect on our lives. […] A couple of groups who had shared
general concerns about the environment and had already been
involved in Harbour issues down through the years got together
at that point and sent out notices to about twenty-five (25) or
thirty (30) other groups inviting them to join in the combined
application for the intervenor funding. […] In the end, five (5)
groups joined in the funding application and for purposes of the
use of the funds called themselves the Metro Coalition for
Harbour Cleanup (MCHC) (120).

[…] It is important to understand that MCHC is the public
representing particular points of view, that’s true, but still the
public. We do not presume to speak for every citizen nor are we
a voice for every point of view on harbour cleanup (123).
[…] We reviewed and wrote a comprehensive report on the
voluminous Environmental Assessment Report prepared for the
Panel by HHCI. It takes not a very long time to say that but the
report itself contained twenty-four (24) companion reports
thousands of pages long full with technical detail.
Many of our initial comments and criticisms on the Report were
adopted by this Panel and became part of a deficiency list which
the Panel asked HHCI to deal with before public hearings could be
scheduled.
We then responded again to HHCI’s supplementary information
on the deficiencies. We have also published a newsletter, carried
on through the efforts of our coordinator a focused campaign to
keep the public and various levels of government aware of the
many reasonable alternatives to various aspects of the HHCI
proposal and encouraged government and the public to
participate in the public review process. […]
Our concerns ranged from the OFS technology which among other
problems may mean that later upgrading of the treatment system
to secondary levels cannot even take place, through the use of
highly toxic chlorine as the HHCI proposed method of disinfecting
the sewage treated to only primary levels where it is dumped into
the Harbour, through all the other concerns with primary
treatment including the lack of source controls for toxins that the
sewage system now puts into the Harbour and the lack of a plan
to exclude storm water.

With regard to our four (4) reports, we recognized early that
MCHC are not the entire public. We are simply representative of
certain viewpoints on certain aspects of the project.
[…] [W]e focused on elements of the project which are of real
concern to the constituent groups. Those were essentially the
site, the level and kind of sewage treatment proposed and the
overall perspective and assumptions driving the project.[…]
Inevitably though, the overarching issue of cost was an implicit
part of our approach as well although we did not set out primarily
to control cost but rather to achieve the best possible result from
an environmental point of view. It was a nice bonus when we
found out that one more result of adopting our, we think, more
environmentally friendly proposals for sewage treatment would be
to knock roughly $60 million off the $400 million projected capital
cost of HHCI’s plan (125).
The four (4) reports dealt with the following themes: sustainable
development;
Sustainable development was the central of these 4 themes and
“In several important ways, this is our key report in that it ties all
of the elements of the HHCI proposal together in a way that the
Environmental Assessment Report did not and exposes their
premises to be fundamentally inadequate in light of current
environmental thinking” (127).
Another one of our reports by P. Land and Associates Ltd. deals
with alternate waste water treatment technologies. It describes
workable and cheaper alternatives to the primary level of
treatment proposed by HHCI. These alternate techniques
comprise natural biological systems, such as engineered
wetlands, and are all proven technologies which have performed
well and provide a more efficient level of treatment than the
primary system proposed here. The use of these other
treatment methods also means that certain costly elements of
HHCI’s plan, such as some of the tunnelling and the construction
of an artificial island, could be dispensed with (128).

The final report commissioned by the MCHC is one by Alan
Ruffman, our coordinator and a member of the Fournier Halifax
Harbour Task Force. This report deals with the location of the
diffuser of the sewage treatment plant. It shows how HHCI has
changed the philosophy of effluent containment driving the
Halifax Harbour Task Force recommendation on the diffuser
location to one of dispersal. However, HHCI is not able to
identify or demonstrate the area of dispersal with solid scientific
evidence. Using the latest available data on Harbour currents,
the report concludes that the outfall should be relocated to the
HHTF1
location, originally chosen northeast of George’s Island
and that this will save money and protect Harbour water quality
(130).
We want the Harbour pollution cleaned up. We want the Panel to
hear and heed the voices of ordinary people speaking out on the
best ways to cleanup the pollution in the Harbour and we want it
to protect the unique greenspace that is McNabs Island at a time
when urban greenspace is disappearing fast (131).
1 The Halifax Harbour Task Force, referenced above proposed that the main outfall location should be placed in the
Inner Harbour. a) [T]he outfall must be a minimum of 2 km from any beach in order to prevent the risk of
contamination from faecal coliform bacteria which may survive disinfection. This distance would be depend[e]nt
on the design of the diffuser and the effectiveness of disinfection. b) The diffuser must be placed in a water depth
of at least 20 m. c) The diffuser should ideally be placed on a hard bottom (exposed bedrock or sediments less than
1 m thick) […] The Task Force therefore concluded, using the conditions outlined above, that the most appropriate
location for an outfall diffuser is on the hard bottom of the Inner Harbour between George’s Island and the
Dartmouth Shore. Halifax Harbour Task Force Final Report (Halifax: Halifax Harbour Cleanup Incorporated,
1990): 60.

Federal-Provincial Assessment Review Panel for the
Halifax-Dartmouth Wastewater Management System
Volume 2, 22 March 1993 Halifax: Halifax Harbour Cleanup
Inc. 1994

Participants:

Halifax Field Naturalists (Colin Stewart) : Okay, the other
question that comes up is, are there alternatives? Maybe we
have to risk the park. We don’t believe so. There are the sites
that have, at one time or another, been put forward as sea level
sites that potentially could be an alternative, or it includes Ives
(48).
[W]hat is driving the McNabs decision? The first thing is the
need for a single plant. As soon as you say “multiple plants,”
McNabs just becomes too expensive; it is out of consideration.
And what drives the need for a single plant? Oil From Sludge.
If you don’t have Oil From Sludge, then you don’t need twenty
tons of sludge a day coming into your system, all in one place, to
produce the oil to try to make this project pay off (48).
Finally, what it all comes down to for HFN, we feel a little bit
boxed in because this has been made rather than a comparison of
sites a McNabs take it or leave it. We do not want to delay; we
are not willing to risk McNabs. The bottom line for us is, “Sorry,
we have to leave it; we reject McNabs; back to the drawing
board” (61).

Dr. Patricia Lane. The proponent of this project, HHCI, claims
that the project us a sustainable development project, citing the
Bruntland Commission report, the World Commission on
Environment and Development. Even though this has been
superseded by more rigid criteria—for example Caring for Your
World by IUCM, UNEP, or the Rio Declaration that Canada signed
last June – I would like to talk about the fact that I don’t think
this project does exemplify a sustainable development ethic or
principle[.]

Problems pointed out by Lane:
a. The ‘weak thread’ problem. The project design was not
developed logically or consistently. The assumption trail of
this project leads to some very non-sustainable project
components, rationale statements, and poor treatment of
project alternatives.
b. Structurally flawed EIA.
c. ‘Invisible clothes problem’ – “[T]he marine environmental
quality will not be greatly enhanced. I can’t see where
there will be large improvements in marine quality, and yet
we are told that we must be ill-informed or stupid id we
can’t see these great improvements, this the problems I am
mentioning are based on structural flaws that are not fixable
in a cosmetic sense. […]
[I]s the environment maximally protected? Are economic
costs minimized? Are we using the best sustainable
technology from an engineering point-of-view. […] We don’t
want to play the role of the gullible subjects to pay homage in
taxes, lots of taxes, to an unsustainable project. We don’t
want to be termed ‘stupid’ or ‘ill informed’ if we can’t see that
there is going to be great improvement in this project. […]
The project design was not very logical or consistent. […]
We heard we had to have a sea level site. Well, McNabs is not
effectively a sea level site when you have to pump swage up
from the bottom under the ocean floor up about 60 metres at
tremendous cost. We had to have one marine plant again for
the oil from sludge. This necessitated then that we have
extensive tunnelling, a tremendous amount of capital
construction costs, and a lot of really disruption [sic] to put
these tunnels in. Where are the tunnel spoils going to go?
[…] We have heard more treatment is too expensive so we
can’t consider secondary or tertiary treatment, but we can
afford tunnelling, we can afford a marine location we can afford
an artificial island (72-74).

Critique of the EIA: There is no detailed list of project
activities or rationale or alternatives. […] Cumulative effects
are missing altogether, but yet this is the whole crux of
sustainable development. […] In terms of an environmental
management plan, this is the place where the proponent
commits. This is a lot of questionable or unclear commitment,
a lot left out. There is an unclear legislative base; it is weak
on monitoring and compensation in the commitment to both of
those. […] A decision maker, in order to decode on this
project, has to know the risk, the cost and the benefits. And
finally, the public participation: we have no assurance that the
public is really, although they will hear about the project and
they will have communications, there is really no assurance
that they are going to have any more influence than they have
to date. So there are a lot of problems in this RIA not just in
delineation of particular impacts but in major structural flaws
(76-79).

Lane: The whole goal of the project is to enhance marine
environmental quality. But it doesn’t. There is poor
quantification. And this is very strange. This is one of the
best studied harbours in the world. […] What we don’t know,
and what the assessment is very silent on, us the non-faecal
pathogens, nutrient enrichment, toxic blooms, eutrophication,
assimilative capacity, the fate and effects of toxins, toxicity
problems with nitrogen, ecosystem level effect[…] The
assessment remains ambivalent on a assimilative capacity and
the containment theory (81).

Dr. David Patriquin: As someone involved in active research
and development in alternative waste management
technologies […] I really wonder seriously whether we have
given appropriate consideration to the alternative emerging
technologies. […] And, at least from my discussions with
some members of the Task Force, they said there was not
significant discussion about alternative technologies and I
wonder if that is really acceptable (93).

I am also concerning [sic] about – in our young people here.
Our young people want to grow up with new technologies, new
businesses, new opportunities, This is going to relegate us to
a technology that is not going to be sellable [sic] around the
world and I really wonder if that is an appropriate thing to do
and we are spending this much money. […] Secondly, have
the alternative technologies been seriously considered?

And I would certainly ask the Review Panel at the end of this if
they are satisfied that the public has a good understanding of
the HHCI scheme and the alternatives and for their implications
for the public purse and for the environment (95).
P. Lane and Associates proposed an engineered wetland as
opposed to the HHCI project, that needs to be considered.

Mr. [Howard] Epstein: The appearance of Mr. Reed [the
function of Reed’s presentation was to discredit the work of the
MCHC with respect to its counter-proposal that an engineered
wetland would be a better option than the one proposed by
HHCI] this evening was in response to a report that we [MCHC]
filed with the Panel at least three (3) weeks ago.
What I’m wondering is whether you know whether HHCI has
any other surprise witnesses that they are planning on bringing
during the course of these hearings (128).

John Holm: [on behalf of the NSNDP]: We want to stress our
view that achievements of targets must be the prerequisite in
light of the inadequate public participation, education and
disappointing results from the Metropolitan Authority’s
recycling collections.
Slow, half-hearted source controls on toxic materials falling far
short of their objectives would be unacceptable (142).

Our final concern about the reduction of contaminants is the
effect of chlorination of the material to be diffused into the
Harbour from the treatment plant. It appears to us that
chlorination is required because the Corporation has not
adhered to two (2) criteria set forth by the Fournier Task Force
: that no combined sewer outflows be located in the northwest
arm and that the diffuser be at least two kilometres from any
swimming area (144).