Federal-Provincial Assessment Review Panel for the Halifax-Dartmouth Wastewater Management System Volume 6 [Eastern Passage-Cow Bay, District 6 Fire Department, Eastern Passage, NS, 25 March 1993, Evening session]
Opening Remarks
HHCI Presentation
Questions based on the presentation:
Elizabeth Kwindt: My name is Elizabeth Kwindt and I have a question for the last presenter [Cy Allan]. He mentioned ‘improved perception,’ I believe in relation to the quality of seafood. I would like him to explain what “improved perception” means. I can understand improved quality, but not what he was saying. Will you please explain, sir?i
Mr. Fudge: I will answer that, if I may, Madam Chair?
The Chairperson: Fine, go ahead.
Mr. Fudge: Perception is very important with seafood quality and consumption. I think you can look at the d[o]moic acid [red tide] scare with the mussels in PEI some years ago, and even though this scare occurred in mussels, the sales for all fish products went dramatically down. […] I believe whitefish fillets were down 50 per cent of sales, just because somebody got poisoned eating a mussel. So, perception in seafood and seafood quality is certainly a big factor in the marketplace, and if the perception were that lobster or other fish products from this Halifax Harbour area were contaminated, were perceived as to be a danger to human health because people were fishing these species out of the contaminated Harbour, then I suspect it would have a profound effect in the future, say if there is no treatment and things get worse, in particular on markets for fishermen from this local area. So there is a perception there I think by the people and concern about their fish. Now, if let’s say we do put in treatment and the Harbour water quality improves and the general health of the bottom improves and so on in Halifax Harbour, and this is certainly something that can be measured and it is a real thing, a real improvement in water quality, then concerns about the quality of seafood, the quality of fish that are taken out of that Harbour will presumably be, the concerns will be removed or reduced. Does that help?
Ms. Kwindt: It helps a bit, but I think it would be more clear if you said the quality would be better; would have a better quality instead of just “improved perception of better quality.”ii
Eugene Deveaux, [Municipal Councillor, District 6, Eastern Passage, Cow Bay and Shearwater.]:
Eastern Passage has always been primarily known as a fishing village, and certainly is still one of the most important fishing [village] in Halifax County and probably the Province of Nova Scotia. […] One question […] one of my major concerns, one of them is the outfall, and your technology sessions that have been set up for this week and next week – and I am just questioning the way they were set up I guess, I am not saying that you people are not organized or anything, but for instance I believe tomorrow there is a technical session laid on for Sludge to Oil or it is one that I would have liked to attend, but here I am speaking tonight hopefully to get the answers on the Sludge to Oil operation. Wouldn’t it have been better to have your technical sessions take place first to give myself and other people the opportunity to go there and get a clued up, if I may use that term, prior to coming here to express my concerns or ask questions.iii
Deveaux and the problems with the Eastern Passage plant:
I know, having been involved with the acquiring of sewer and water for the community some 15 or 20 years ago – no one, I am sure, is more aware of the problem to have had with our present treatment plant than I am, particularly not only the outfall but the odours which have emanated from that plant since it was constructed around 1973. […] One of the questions, I would hope that when the new plant is constructed, whether it goes on McNabs Island or where it goes, that steps have been taken to ensure that the odours will not emanate from that plant, certainly not to the extent that they have been emanating from the plant here at Eastern Passage.
Mr. Calda: Yes. That was one of the reasons why we decided to enclose the plant which will then give use the ability to control the air within the buildings and treat it before venting it to the environment. iv […]
Mr. Allan: The general philosophy that was accepted and recommended by Dr. Fournier in the Halifax Harbour Task Force report was that we should follow a philosophy of containment that, I believe, is in conformance with international agreements. An international agreement was established or agreed to in Montreal in 1985 that said that waste product[s] should be treated and managed and disposed of in the area from which they were generated. And it was that type of philosophy that was applied to the selection of the outfall system for this regional treatment facility.v
[…]
Mr. Deveaux: Where the present outfall is slated to be placed, what I would like, too, is a guarantee. I this going to affect marine life and do we have any insurance that once the effluent leaves that outfall is it not going to find its way back into what we know here as the creek area of Eastern Passage where our fishermen tie up their boats and land their fish?
Mr. Allan: You are asking for guarantees on the transfer of water in and out of the harbour, and that is fairly difficult to do with respect to guaranteeing the movement of the water in any one direction or another. The effluent discharge from the diffuser is designed to provide a 50:1 dilution ration of that effluent before it reaches the surface, and thus provide a greatly improved standard of water in that whole area.vi
At this point, Stephen Hurlburt stepped in to speak on some of the technical details at hand, specifically with respect to the Eastern Passage region.
Stephen Hurlburt: Basically what we have here is some computer model simulations of suspended solid concentrations, and we have done a whole bunch of these different simulations. These are some of them; not exactly the most appropriate; but the point that I would like to make is that this is a simulation of existing conditions, as things are now. So the areas that you are concerned about are being affected now by sewage discharge practices in Halifax Harbour. […] [U]nfortunately this is an old simulation and we are interested in levels about one-fifth that.
Mr. Parker: I am sorry, sir; I am having trouble understanding what you are saying, and maybe it would help if you could clarify what the different colours mean, and what you mean by plots, and present it in —
Mr. Hurlbert: Ok. I am sorry.
Mr. Parker: — a very simple language so that we can understand it please.
Mr. Hurlbert: Sure. Okay. We will take a step back.vii These [charts/ diagrams/figures being displayed]. These are the results of a computer (indicating). The computer model predicts the currents in and out of the harbour based on extensive oceanographic studies that have occurred over the years. […] You can see high concentrations at Dartmouth Cove, Tufts Cove, along the coast of Halifax down by Pier A. This is an imprint of the Sackville River and the Mill Cove sewage treatment plant up here. […] You can also see the effects of Chain Rock outfall. Basically any place that you are at the head end of an estuary you have less mixing and you have higher concentration if you dump anything in those places.
Mr. Deveaux: I don’t know if I got the answer yet. […] My question was basically, when the effluent comes out at the outfall, or whatever comes out at the outfall, where is that going to go? Is that going to cause problems or determinant to the fishermen in the area, or the marine life; and, is it a possibility when it comes out that it could find its way back into what I indicated as the creek, if you know where that is, where the boats, fishermen tie up their boats and land their fish. […] When it comes out of that diffuser, [at Ives Island] is there any possibility first and foremost it will have detrimental effect to any marine life? […]
Mr. Hurlburt: I think the answer to that is no.
Mr. Deveaux: You think but you are not sure.
Mr. Hurlburt: We can only predict to a certain level, to the limit of our knowledge of the area, which is extensive. […] But, as I said, we would expect the sediments to improve in the area that you are talking about now at the end of the —
Mr. Eugene Deveaux: Once again, you know, a lot of the respect, neither you or anybody else this evening I think, or until this program goes into operation, can indicate how much all these things are going to be improved, with all due respect. […] From Day One I always felt, and still feel, that that outfall should have been somewhere out around Herring Cove or outside of the harbour – in the harbour outskirts where that would have in fact resolved all the problems. Once again, I am not an engineer or a technician or whatever but I have to, in all honesty, question how primary treatment is really going to go – how far it is going to go to resolve cleaning up Halifax Harbour.viii
David Higgins [Executive Director, Nova Scotia Hospital]. […] The Nova Scotia Hospital has been located on the shores of Halifax Harbour since its inception in 1858. I am [delighted] to see that the initiative to clean up the harbour and introduce a waste management system us being undertaken. My second and my primary reason for being here relates to our understanding that two proposals have been submitted the Environmental Review Panel suggesting that the proposed sewage treatment plant be constructed directly in front of, or adjacent to the Nova Scotia Hospital. I am here to let the Environmental Assessment Review Panel know that the hospital’s board of management and staff are strongly opposed to this proposal. […] The Nova Scotia Hospital is an eight-building complex that sits on a 46-acre site on the Dartmouth waterfront. The hospital employs approximately 900 people. At any one time the mental health – we provide mental health services to 2,000 patients. Two hundred and fifty (250) of those at any one time are inpatients.ix
[…] Historically, individuals experiencing mental health problems have not only faced the obstacle of their illness but the stigma associated with it. The proposal to construct the sewage treatment plant adjacent to the hospital clearly reinforces the prevailing stigma. Should the Sandy Cove site be given serious consideration, let alone chosen, the message appears to be that the mentally ill should not be given the same considerations as other members of the community. […] I would urge the Environmental Review Panel to be aware of the opposition from the hospital on this basis alone, quite apart from the standard reasons for opposition by other interested groups within the community at large. […] It is my understanding that the Sandy Cove site proposed by the Eastern Passage and Cow Bay Residents and Ratepayers Association is within 150 metres of the entire Nova Scotia Hospital complex and within 75 metres of much of it. […] It is our understanding that the overwhelming opinion of the public during the community input process related to site selection was that the plant should not be built near people. This would be in keeping with our understanding of the Nova Scotia Department of Environment guidelines of a minimum of 150 metre buffer zone around such plants. We understand that other provinces have a buffer requirement of up to a thousand metres, These buffers, we understand, are not only associated with odours, but also with land values, public perception, safety, noise and other factors. […] Should this facility lead to air quality problems, or even the potential of such problems, to the extent that it would require an evacuation of the Nova Scotia Hospital, the costs would be enormous, both on terms of money and patient care disruption. It could also lead – and this is another issue – it could also lead to the type of environmental air quality problems and staff complaints and illnesses that are creating enormous operational problems in other hospitals in the local area. [As were occurring at the Camp Hill Hospital.] […] In summary, the Nova Scotia is totally opposed to the location of the Halifax Harbour Sewerage Treatment Plant at Sandy Cove and we would take whatever action we could to convince the decision makers that our site is not a suitable location for the reasons I have mentioned. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to make our concerns known to the Environmental Review Panel. Thank you very much.x
Eastern Passage Ratepayers [Intervenor group, like the Metro Coalition, and also supported by Federal Government intervenor funding]
The Chairperson: […] [M]ay I say that the material prepared by these three (3) intervenor groups has been extremely useful in presenting the full spectrum of issues and we’re very grateful for all of the work that these groups have done.xi
Presenters on behalf of the Eastern Passage Raterayers: Bill Stanbroook; Elizabeth Kwindt; Jim Wies.
Bill Stanbrook: Our key concern is our community and this is what we’re after. We do support the idea of cleaning up Halifax Harbour.
We at Eastern Passage, know better the need to clean up the Harbour. We have people who make their living from the Harbour and ocean fishing out of Eastern Passage. We have had our beaches fouled to the point of being non-usable over the last number of years mostly from untreated waste of the two cities. […] To this end, we do support the concept of cleaning up the Harbour. Then we go on to Community impact. […] HHCI state that Eastern Passage community impact is insignificant because there are no direct project impacts. […] The impact at Eastern Passage cannot be ignored. We consider the sewage treatment plant to be in our area […] the Municipal Planning Process shows McNabs Island as park. Also the description of Halifax polling District No. 6 shows this island to be in our community and we are impacted. […] And, where they’re proposing to put the plant […] is on the end of Ives Point. Olay. So as you can see, it is definitely within our community.
[…] Dr. Fournier Task Force recommended […] that HHCI should open discussions with the community or neighbourhood immediately to the proposed site in preparation for the development of a siting agreement. To date, only very limited and inadequate communication has occurred, HHCI do not appear to recognize that the sewage treatment plant us un anybody’s backyard. […] We find it strange, therefore, that the is only one research site for the Panel’s evaluation, In fact, we understood that the Minister directed HHCI to adopt all the Fournier recommendations and it is not clear that this has happened.xii
Elizabeth Kwindt: We have many unresolved concerns. HHCI states that we can expect to have mercury, chlorinated hydrocarbons, cadmium and possibility PCBs coming from the process. As we are downwind from this sewage treatment plant, we are concerned about odours due to our past first-hand experience. We believe there could be adverse effects on our community […] but we are mostly concerned about our children. These effects can be in lifestyle, planned community growth or more seriously in the area of health. We are concerned about the switch from Founier’s recommendation of containment to that of one which now looks more like dispersal of the outfall location.xiii […] We believe that there a number of choices of location and technology available to us. […] But we must make the best choice. To do this, we must have fair, open, consistent and logical examination of the alternatives. It should not be a process which tries to prove one choice is “right” and the others are wrong. We also have concerns about the Oil From Sludge emissions. The release of heavy metals in the Oil From Sludge emissions is of grave concern. The Environmental Assessment Report lists cadmium, mercury and possible PCBs as materials released into the atmosphere by the OFS plant. […] Now due to the prevailing winds, our community will be affected most of the time. This is definitely a concern also because the accepted limits to heavy metal exposure are constantly being lowered. So we see this as a real threat, those emissions.xiv
Paul Calda; in response to Eastern Passage Ratepayers: If I may, Madam Chair, we basically agree with the presentation and with most of what we heard today.
Right now we believe we did pick the best choice. We have assembled a lot of data. We have listened to the communities. At the time of the Halifax Harbour Task Force we have attended those sessions together with the members of the Task Force and we have accepted all the recommendations of the Task Force. Unfortunately the Task Force left use with the most difficult decision which was to pick one of the sites from the five (5) and after many hours and days and a lot of thought given to this process, we believe we have picked the best site. […] [S]omething I don’t quite understand is that when concerns are expressed about odour, mercury and other air emissions which we have documented in the Environmental Assessment Report as being something to fear from and then at the same time suggesting that the treatment be closer to people and on the mainland so to speak of either Dartmouth or Halifax.xv
Mr. Stanbrook: I wish that HHCI would finally admit that this project is project is within Eastern Passage boundaries. […] We [Eastern Passage Ratepayers] are a volunteer group. There has been thousands of hours put in by a number of people in this community. […] [W]e are not engineers. We are not lawyers. We do not know the technical end and Bill and a and a number of others have tried to learn some of it. […] [I]t would stand probably two (2) stacks ten (10) to twelve (12) feet high. I don’t know, a huge amount of paper to go through, all technical.xvi
Elizabth Kwindt: [I]t appeared that the Island site was favoured [above] all the other ones. I would like to ask you why when you did this brief assessment of the other three locations along the Dartmouth – I believe they were all along the Dartmouth harbour front – why you left the outfall, the diffuser, in the same location as planned for the McNabs site so you have to tunnel all the way out to that site?xvii
[…]
Mr. Fudge: It has to be – it has to be looked at. During the Environmental Assessment, [sic] we looked the whole range of communities around the Halifax/Dartmouth waterfronts and certainly there are those communities, as you can well imagine, that are going to have the significant amounts of construction and all the associated disturbances that go along with it right in the midst of their community with the tunnelling and the piping various constructions methods that we looked at […] we found some significant impacts on neighbourhoods for various reasons because the transportation or land use whatever.
But in Eastern Passage as a case in point, you won’t see it, you won’t hear it. There’s nothing going through here. There’s no tunnelling, no construction activities, no displacement or disturbance and compared to the significant impacts predicted in other areas of, say, Halifax or Dartmouth vecause of construction activities as a case in point, compared to your community here we couldn’t come to a conclusion other than it was insignificant in that case.xviii
Royce Wallker [Eastern Passage Ratepayers]: My understanding is that the STP is viewed as being – what’s my word her – an unpopular structure and District 6 seems going to inherit that structure without benefit at least at the initial outset of the project. […] Can you explain how the proposal – how the proposed island site respect the District 6 Municipal Plan?
Mr. Rob Grant: Those lands are within Federal jurisdiction. All discussion which HHCI has held with those departments in control of the land have indicated that in the event that the Minister has approved the project, it’s not anticipated that HHCI will have difficulty acquiring a leasehold interest in those lands. […] The Planning Act does not apply with respect to Crown lands so in effect the Municipal Planning Strategy and Land Use By-law does not apply with respect to these lands upon which the island will be built.xix
Mr. Howard Epstein: I wonder, Dr, Conover, if we understand HHCI’s legal counsel correctly that what is being proposed is that ultimately the plant will be owned, operated by the municipalities which are units that exists by virtue of provincial legislation but they will not have any zoning by-laws that will apply to the and because they’re planning on leasing it from the Federal government; is that what we are being told?
Mr. Rob Grant: Madam Chair, I don’t believe I speculated as to who would be operating the plant. The point that I did make was that the plant would be situated on lands leased from the Federal Crown and that as a consequence of that the Planning Act does not apply.xx
Herb Campbell [Engineer, with expertise in OFS technology, he was hired by HHCI]: “I am quite pleased to have the opportunity to spend a little bit of time and try and put the Oil From Sludge technology into perspective, perhaps for those people that have not had the opportunity to really understand where it fits in, and hopefully also to allay some of the misunderstandings that appear to be associated with the technology.xxi […] [W]e all know that sludge management is an expensive procedure. We have done studies, we know that in many plants, depending upon the size, depending upon the technologies, but it is quite easy to have sludge management account for up to 50 per cent of the total treatment cost, both in terms of capital cost and in operational cost. The other thing is that, whether we like it or not, sludge is very visible. […] So the public, quite rightly, are concerned both about the aesthetics and the health effects associated with sludge management options.xxii […] But when we look at sludge management, and I think this is very important, and it is something that we have to consider all the time: it is not a question of yes or no. […] So really, the question become how; how do we do this? […] If you want to get to the nitty gritty, the options fall into three categories: landfill, some kind of land utilization and some kind of thermal processing.xxiii […] Oil from Sludge. Well, the key to Oil from Sludge really is the recycling of energy within the system, and again, let me stress what we are talking about is what happens within this box, okay? [Dewatering, and drying].xxiv
We also generate two by-products. Those are in effect fuels, because the water has already gone. Those are put into a furnace, an energy generator, where they are combusted and the heat that is released goes back to dry the sludge. So the key to this triangle is where everything is linked.xxv
[…] The Oil From Sludge process basically consists of dry sludge heated to 450 degrees Celsius without oxygen at atmospheric pressure […] you basically cook it and it is thermally converted to a product for sale, which is oil, and by-products for internal reuse. So, the product for sale is liquid hydrocarbons or an oil, and what we are keying in right now, that holds a great deal of promise and has people at NRC and ourselves quite excited is the application in the asphalt industry.xxvi
Rod Giffen, Purcell’s Cove: I understand there was a delay in the approval because of emission concerns, as Ontario has banned incineration. One of the criteria was that emissions would have to be chemically treated, which is one of the standards Ontario was moving to for incineration, I believe.xxvii
Herb Campbell: No, I would like to clarify a couple of things here. In Ontario, the incineration of municipal solid waste, household garbage, has been temporarily banned, and let us not confuse the issue between municipal solid waste and sludge incineration, because they are not the same. There are very great differences. In Ontario 75 per cent of the sludge that is produced is, in fact, incinerated.xxviii
