Bain ehh ————e Chromium plant ‘would be a disaster’ NANAIMO — More than 60 Gabriola Island and Nanaimo residents upstaged Premier Bill Vander Zalm’s announcement on the Vancouver Island natural gas pipe- line here Tuesday as they took their protest over a proposed ferrochromium smelter directly to the government’s media confer- ence. Vander Zalm, Energy Minister Jack Davis, Environment Minister Bruce Stra- chan and other officials were in the city to announce final approval of the pipeline. But the Nanaimo and District Ferro- chromium Blockade (NDFB), which has waged a public campaign against the con- tentious smelter proposal, put their issue into the public spotlight with a demonstra- tion outside the news conference. “We’re going to continue these protests — to prevent this project from being built until all the environmental concerns have been addressed and met,” committee member Kathryn Miller told the Tribune. The ferrochromium plant proposal was advanced in January by Jay Wooding, chief engineer for New Jersey-based Sherwood Metaliurgical Corporation, which hopes to establish the plant at Jack Point, a narrow strip of land some 15 kilometres from Nanaimo in an area noted for its sea lions and eagles’ nests. Despite a questionable track record in the industry and a penchant for secrecy, Wooding won approval from Nanaimo city council and subsequently secured start-up loans from the federal and provincial governments through the Western Diversi- fication Fund. B.C. Hydro offered rate dis- counts of 35 per cent for the plant and the provincial government gave Wooding a 25- year lease on 4.3 acres of parkland for his own use. But Wooding’s process for melting the chromium ore has been questioned by a European company which worked with the USS. engineer. Georges Faber, a representative of a Luxembourg company, Arbed, which had worked with Wooding on a joint venture, stated that the furnace prototype designed by Wooding “never worked as intended” during 18 consecutive months. Faber added that the process never got to the stage of producing the mineral wool that had been promised and the equipment was finally dismantled because of lack of prospects in _ the industry. But it is the potential environmental damage that has united Nanaimo and Gabriola Island residents in opposition to the project. “The repercussions of this project are mind-blowing,” said NDFB member Cyn- thia Hemsworth. “And it is not just this generation that could be affected but future generations.” Dr. Paul Connett, a leading U.S. envir- onmentalist and professor of chemistry, warned residents during a conference on the issue in June that one of the by-products of chromium smelting is Chromium 6, a highly toxic carcinogen. It would constitute some 20 per cent of the plant’s emissions, he said, Connett also charged that an environ- mental impact study produced for Wood- ing by a Vancouver consulting firm, Norelco, was little more than “an advocacy document telling only half the story.” The waters around Nanaimo, which could be poisoned by pollution from the: plant, are crucial to both the salmon and herring fishery. The plant would also threaten the thriving tourist industry, Miller warned. Wooding earlier attempted to set up the plant in Coos Bay, Oregon and subse- quently in Mill Bay, near Victoria, but was turned down in both places. Still unknown is Wooding’s intended market for his finished product. “They’ve talked about this plant as if the stuff is going to be used for cutlery. But it is used in the aeronautics industry and it could be used in the military,” said Hemsworth. Wooding has also been evasive about where he will be getting the chromium ore, for which South Africa is a prime source of supply, Hemsworth said. In the last month, the Nanaimo and Dis- trict Ferrochromium BLockade has stepped up its campaign against the project. Last month residents camped out on the site and they have continued to publicize the danger of environmental destruction that the plant threatens. The campaign clearly stung Wooding who charged last week that the project was “being obstructed ... bya bunch of nuts on Gabriola Island.” — Ironically, Wooding’s comments coin- cided with news reports from his home state of New Jersey, that chromium crystals were leaching through cement in an elementary school, forcing closure of the school. “That’s the thing about the smelter tailings — you just can’t get rid of them, said Hemsworth. At Tuesday’s news conference, Strachan was compelled to respond to the opposi- tion, arguing that the project was still “just on paper” since none of the required per- mits was in place. : He did note that Wooding’s application to the Waste Management Branch for 4 permit to discharge warm water as part of the cooling process had been rejected. But Wooding can still re-submit his application or put forward alternate proposals for cool- ing. 2 “This plant would be a disaster for this area, and we’re going to continue to put pressure on city council and the provincial government to see that it doesn’t happen,” Miller said. The campaign against the plant was also expected to get a boost this week when three federal scientists, who have been working privately for the Nanaimo Citizen’s Public Affairs Association, release their report on the environmental danger posed by the pro- ject. The housing crisis in Vancouver is rapidly becoming a severe social crisis that adversely affects the whole city. There are two main causes. The first is that good affordable hous- ing is being demolished to make way for expensive condos. Offshore investors are moving in, buying up apartment build- ings and houses that are in perfectly good shape and renting at affordable prices, and demolishing them and_ putting up $250,000 and $500,000 condos in their place. According to a not yet released city report, over 1,000 tenants now renting affordable apartments will be evicted this year to make way for higher cost condos. The only way to stop this heartless practice is for city council to impose a city-wide moratorium on demolition of rental housing units. The second main cause of our housing crisis is that nothing is being done by any level of government to build affordable housing. Some 35,000 families a year are moving into Vancouver; only a small minority are wealthy. Where will they find accommodation? Our mayor has come up with a scheme hatched in secret with a group of developers and investors led by Jack Poole. It is faulty for several reasons: @ The mayor has no right to try and do an end run around city council to make his own secret deal to give an 80- year lease on 15 choice city-owned lots worth more than $30 million to a group of private investors to enable them to line their own pockets at public expense. Investors are being told their take will be 20 - 25 per cent. @ The city has no right to help out these private developers by: putting up $12 million in taxpayers money to finance City should establish own housing program their project. @ This project will not solve the city’s housing crisis because.the 1,800 units to be built will not be affordable housing; they will rent at current market prices and we all know that in Vancouver these are now the second highest in Canada. These units will be out of the reach for the people who need them the most. City-owned lands can and should be used to provide affordable housing. Since private developers aren’t interested ~ in building affordable housing, what’s the matter with the city going into the housing business? We could build hous- ing units at far below current market prices because we already have the land and wouldn’t have to pay developer prof- its. If the city can put up $12 million to help private investors and developers to build market-priced housing on city- owned land, why can’t we put up the money and build affordable housing ourselves? We could do it and still pay union wages. We’ve got a city housing corporation that could handle the job very well. We could also make.city land availa- ble for affordable co-op housing. q 2 ¢ Pacific Tribune, September 11, 1989 Gitksan women, with hereditary ch outside B.C. Supreme Court. Pe ief Clara Harris in front, pe rform during rally Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en case far-reaching, rally told A successful outcome to the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en land case currently before the B.C. Supreme Court will have far-reaching ramifications for the political makeup of Canada, a support rally on the courthouse steps Sept. 5 was told. “It is incumbent on British Columbians to pay attention to our court action, because we are going to change the tradition of politics in this land,” Ralph Michell, a Gitk- san hereditary chief whose Native name is WiiSeeks, told supporters gathered on the Nelson Street steps. The trial over the Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en title over traditional territory on a large chunk of land in central western B.C., which has already involved some 250 days of court sessions, resumed Sept. 5 and will likely not be concluded until the end of next May, lawyer Stuart Rush said. Rush, one of a team of five lawyers facing a battery of high-powered legal experts act- ing for the federal and provincial govern- ments, said most British Columbians probably do not realize how significant the Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en case is. Rush blamed this on a news blackout engineered by the provincial government, which deliberately has not stated what its position is on the case. But he noted that lawyers for the government, which is currently calling fisheries and wildlife officials to the stand as key witnesses to establish government claim to the territory, have in statements charged that the Gitksan case is based on “‘the con- spiracy theory of history.” That is not true, Rush asserted: “From the evidence which has been called by the hereditary chiefs, it would be obvious to anyone in the courtroom that there is no substance to that position.” A position paper distributed at the sup- port rally points out the two distinctive fac- tors in the Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en case. The first, it states, is that “the legal pleadings reflect the aboriginal rights of the Gitksan and Wet’suwet’en Indian nations as the hereditary chiefs themselves perceive them. ...They assert that these rights cannot be taken from them without their consent.” The second feature involves the court understanding Native concepts on land stewardship, laws and political institutions, the paper reported.