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— ‘Data lost with lab sell-off

Continued from page 1

The former government scientist took his
concerns to B.C.’s auditor general and the
Provincial ombudsman, and made media
statements.

_ “The state of both enforcement and mon-
itoring of the environment in this province
1s in chaos, in my opinion,” Sandberg said.

lhe government team overseeing privati-
zation had “no clue of what they were. pri-
vatizing” and the promises of greater
efficiencies and lower cost to the taxpayer
are “hollow garbage,” he charged.

The Environment Canada report on the
B.C. Ministry of Environment’s continued
contribution to national monitoring pro-
grams means “I’m no longer a voice crying
in the wilderness,” Sandberg remarked.

The report’s typically dry sentences con-
firm Sandberg’s contention that valuable
data was lost during the transition period
from public to privately run testing. It notes
that since Zenon, a Burlington, Ont. com-
pany, ignored the environmental lab’s per-
formance data, there is ‘a possible
discontinuity in data flowing from the
laboratory.”

A decline in productivity due to staff
resignations in the wake of the privatization
created backlogs in sample~ testing —
including six to eight months of acid rain
samples — meaning the samples have dete-
riorated and can only yield “compromised”
information, the report states.

The report cites delays in B.C. Research’s
effluent monitoring and air pollution moni-
toring programs to the extent that, regard-
ing the latter, there has been no sufficient
data gathered since Aug. 15 last year. None
of the Environmental Lab’s 60 former
employees work for B.C. Research.

The six-member Data Standards Group
must compensate for B.C. Research’s
shortcomings, the report indicates, and the
fact that the group has no direct access to

lab facilities and equipment, “does not lend _

the DSG’s position much credibility.”

A broader view of the interim results of
privatization is contained in a report by
UBC doctoral student Kathyrn Harrison
and business and commerce professor W.T.
Stansbury (who was described by Sandberg
as pro-privatization).

Their report, The Limits of Privatization
by Contracting-Out — which also deals
with the sale of provincial soils analysis and
dairy testing laboratories — backs the con-

tention of Sandberg and the B.C. Govern-
ment Employees Union that the facility was
sold for “fire sale” prices.

The environmental lab’s equipment,
which Sandberg called state of the art, were
assessed at $2.25 million. The government
sold the facility for $800,000. .

Additionally, the buyers have five-year
contracts under which “‘it appears that the
purchaser has been guaranteed $2.8 million
per year, whether or not the Ministry pro-
vides $2.8 million worth of business,” the
UBC report states.

The report also cites Sandberg’s damning
evidence about B.C. Research’s lack of per-
formance. In his Nov. 9 letter to the auditor
general he said that “none of the 2,000 water
pollution audits and 100 checks on air mon-
itors scheduled to have been completed
since August 15 have been done by B.C.
Research.”

The UBC study quotes a government
press release last August that stated the
research corporation would follow “data
standards established by the ministry.” But

four months later there were still no stand-
ards of performance in place, the report
states.

Despite that, B.C. Research was sending
both government and industry bills for ser-
vices rendered since Aug. 15, at the rate of
$600,000 per month, Sandberg told the
workshop. The bills were later reduced to
$400,000 when Sandberg resigned and
wrote his letter to the auditor general.

The UBC report acknowledges the
potential for conflict of interest by the pri-
vatized services which also have several
industries as clients. While B.C. Research
has agreed not to perform government-
ordered test on client industries, it still gets
most of its business from private industry
— including several pulp and mining
firms — and therefore “conflict of interest
will not be avoided. ..,” the report states.

Since Zenon has its own testing methods,
some 20 years of expertise garnered by the
Environmental Laboratory has been lost,
Sandberg said. He said right now Zenon
only performs 10 per cent.of the water tests

DOU SANDBERG ... quit govern-
ment over ‘chaos’ in environment moni-
toring.

they are contracted for, while “‘provincial
monitoring programs for industrial dis-
charges don’t exist.”

During its 20 years of existence the pro-
vincial lab monitored the amount of toxic
compounds in air and water, trained spe-
cialists, provided individual household
inspections at a nominal fee, and conducted
some 200,000 tests annually. It did not test
direct industrial emissions.

Environmentalist cites ‘political will

Only corporate dedication to the almighty
dollar and the lack of political will stand in
the way of implementing environmental
safeguards and cleaning up the pollution.

That was the message that kept resurfac-
ing at a day-long environmental conference
in Burnaby on May 27, which drew 175
people and about 15 environmental groups.

Participants attended 31 workshops, a
plenary session and heard U.S. environ-
mentalist Dr. Paul Connett call for at-
source recycling of waste.

Workshops subjects ranged from the
universal — landfills and pesticide uses
— to the particular, with sessions on defo-
restation in Burnaby and the municipality’s
problems with the virtually unregulated
growth of its petro-chemical industries.

Conference organizer David Fairey, an
economist and local environmentalist, said
the Burnaby Environmental Action Con-
ference was designed to answer questions
and help curious and concerned citizens
become motivated and connécted with local
groups. 3

He said at least one half of the partici-
pants were attending an environmental con-
ference for the first time. -

Fairey has been leading a coalition of
Burnaby citizens opposed to the continued
expansion of Trans Mountain Pipeline’s
storage and shipping facilities. He told a
seminar sponsored by the Burnaby Citizens
for Environmental Protection that the
group’s efforts in attempting to ensure
proper hearings and safeguards “thas been
an education in the way they conduct the oil
industry in this country.”

The group had difficulty getting local
hearings from the National Energy Board,
the federal regulatory agency. And Trans
Mountain has refused requests for envir-
onmental impact assessments, risk assess-
ments and a host of other measures, Fairey
said.

Connett, who spoke at a Nanaimo con-
ference on a controversial ferrochromium
plant the preceding evening, told a special
session that at-source recycling of house-
hold waste will not only tackle the problem
of environmentally dangerous landfills.

“We need at-source separation precisely
because it is educational,” he said.

Connett said the container of household
articles that can not be recycled will raise
awareness among the public that such

=e

things should not be made and ultimately
force politicians to impose new regulations
on industry.

“The people of the United States and
Canada are not the problem. Given the
opportunity, education and motivation we
will source-separate,” he declared.

“The only obstacle is the political will.”

Delegates adopted several resolutions for
further action that included:

@ Support for the idea of a broad based
coalition of local groups that can be mobil-
ized quickly to deal with environmentally
threatening projects.

e@ A recommendation that a full public
inquiry be done on the development, trans-
portation and exploration of oil off the B.C.

_ coast.

_ @ Acommitment to become involved in
any preliminary activities calling for a pub-
lic inquiry into oil development, expansion,
transportation or exploration.

e@ Acall for a moratorium on oil indus-
try expansion, development and explora-
tion until a full public inquiry is completed.

e@ A demand that new existing technolo-
gies be applied to the petro-chemical indus-
try to reduce existing pollution.

Pacific Tribune, June 5, 1989 ¢ 3