British Columbia

Pees

Whitewash. That’s what could have
been predicted when the provincial
government appointed T.M. Thomson
and Associates to probe charges of exces-
Sive waste of usable timber by MacMillan
Bloedel and other forest companies. And
that’s exactly what British Columbians got
when the report was released last week by
Forests Minister Dave Parker.

What else was to be expected when the
Socred government hired an agency that
works for MacBlo to investigate the fore-
Stry practices of the giant company?

But the evidence of the scandalous
waste by MacBlo, Crown Forest Indus-
tries and Western Forest Products was so
overwhelming that the Thomson report
could not avoid finding that there had
indeed been waste on a major scale.

It cited one instance — there were
many more — in which MacBlo failed to
pick up 131,424 cubic metres of wood,
enough to build 2,600 homes. An earlier
report in the Globe and Mail charged that
in 1986, MacBlo left 22 per cent of its
harvest to rot in the forest, an amount that
would fill 320,00 pickup trucks, stretched
bumper to bumper on the TransCanada
Highway from Vancouver to Saskatche-
wan.

Early in 1980, the Socred government
adopted a policy of “sympathetic adminis-
tration” of the forests on the pretext that
the industry was faced with difficult eco-
nomic conditions. This gave the forest
companies the green light to practice

The | province

- Maurice Rush

“highgrading,” taking out the most prof-
itable trees and leaving the rest.

The Social Credit bears full responsibil-
ity for this disastrous policy which the
forest companies were quick to exploit.
Both the government and the Thomson
report point to the policy of “sympathetic
administration” as justification for the
excesses which followed in the province’s
forests.

But the wasteful practices cited in the
Thomson report did not occur in the early
1980s, during the period of sympathetic
administration. The waste continued into
1985-86 when the industry had expe-
rienced a turnaround and companies were
again piling up profits.

That main change against MacMillan
Bloedel was that the company’s Queen
Charlottes operations had violated Sec-
tion 59 of the Forest Act by not reporting
all the timber it left behind in the bush
during logging operations. Under the Act,
a company can lose its timber licence if it is
found guilty.

Probe of M-B timber waste ‘a whitewash’

But that issue is not adequately
addressed in the Thomson report — and
MacBlo has been allowed to get off the
hook for its violation of the Forests Act.

The one recommendation in the Thom-
son report which the public would support
was that fines be imposed on MacBlo,
Crown and Western Forest Products for
consistently wasting vast amounts of usa-
ble timber. But Parker has rejected that
recommendation, arguing that it would be
impossible for the government to set a
retroactive stumpage fee on trees left to rot
on the ground.

The argument is completely false.

The recent Globe and Mail articles

. quoted experts as saying that if MacBlo

had paid royalties on the wood wasted in
the Queen Charlottes, it would have put $6
million into provincial revenues. The
other companies involved, although pay-
ing less, would also have contributed sub-
stantially to government revenues.
Surely, if the government assessors
know the amount of royalties owing they

can establish an appropriate amount to
collect from these companies in the form
of a fine in order to compensate the people
of B.C. for their wasted resources. These
companies can well afford to pay out of
the profits that have made in recent years,
some of which came from creaming B.C.
forests.

The Vancouver Sun was correct when it
stated editorially April 16: “Companies
engaging in wholesale waste deserve more
than just the embarrassment of some brief,
bad publicity. The public purse should be
compensated ... if they get off scot-free,
what is to deter them from doing it again?”

The government’s reaction to the
Thomson report — its whitewash of
MacBlo’s waste and its refusal to impose
any fines — demonstrates the close collu-
sion between the government and the
forest monopolies.

The millions of dollars the forest com-
panies owe the government would be bet-
ter spent increasing welfare. payments,
lowering premiums for medical insurance
and providing funds for operations for the
400 heart patients who are waiting for
operations — and sometimes dying for
lack of facilities.

The public should not allow the Socreds
to get away with this gift to the forest
companies. They must be made to pay up
for the wanton destruction of forest
resources —and their profit figures show
they can well afford to do it.

Nanaimo forum underlines threat of dioxin

By JOHN HILLRICH

NANAIMO — More than 200 people
expressed anger and concern over the
release of dioxins into their environment by
the Harmac pulp mill, at a public forum
here April 21.

But by the end of the 24 hour meeting, it
was clear from the performance of industry
and government representatives that neither
was prepared to do anything about the con-
tamination of the area’s fishery and possible
its residents.

Forum participants cited the unintended
release of a 1987 federal Health and Welfare
Dept. study that found significantly greater
incidences of cancer in communities with
pulp and paper mills.

Representatives of several provincial
departments and Macmillan Bloedel,
owner of the Harmac mill, declined invita-
tions to attend the forum, organized by the
newly-formed Mid-Island Dioxin Coali-
tion.

The coalition consists trade unions, polit-
ical parties, envrinomental organizations
and individuals.

The issue gained prominence last year
when members of the environmental advo-
cacy group, Greenpeace, scaled the Harmac
mill’s smokestack. More recently studies
have shown that effluent emissions from the
mill contain some of the most deadly diox-
ins.

But at a Nanaimo city council meeting
last March Mac Blo and government repre-
sentatives tried to play down the harmful
effects of the chemicals.

At last Thursday’s meeting representa-
tives of Greenpeace, the Council of Forest
Industries of B.C., the Pulp, Paper and |
Woodworkers of Canada (PPWC), and
Environment Canada gave frequently con-
flicting perspectives on the hazards of diox-
ins.
Fred Henton of the PPWC said union
members at the mill were concerned and
angry about the use of dioxins “because we
have a livelihood in that plant and all other

mills in the province.”

The national environmental officer of the
union predicted dioxin-laden pulp would
soon be as unsaleable as is dioxin-treated
lumber today.

Greenpeace representative Renate Kro-
esa said one of the dioxins at Harmac “has
been found to be the most toxic chemical
ever produced by man.”

The toxicology specialist fingered the
dioxin 2378 TCDD, one of those produced
at Harmac during the chlorine bleaching -
process. :

“Dioxin is an all-round poison, and it is
toxic in minute qualities,” Kroesa warned in
citing several laboratory studies on the
chemical’s carcinogenic effect on animals.

Dioxins, found in everyday items such as
toilet paper and office stationery, are “bio-
accumulative,” meaning they are not
expelled from the body, she said.

But the most demonstrable effects have

- been on wildlife, with significant amounts

found in crabs and oysters near the Crofton
pulp mill. And all 200 eggs in a colony of
great blue herons at Crofton failed to hatch,
Kroesa noted. :

“With regard to reproductive failure, the
United States Environmental Protection -
Agency reports that ‘the toxicity is not a
species-specific event and can be expected to
occur in all species, including the human,’ ”
she related.

Kroesa quoted research from the Wey-
haeuser forestry company to point out that
alternatives to chlorine bleaching, such as
“oxygen-based delignification,” are avail-
able and are cost-effective.

Dr. Kirk Dawson, regional director-
general of Environment Canada, said no
studies had found dioxins to be harmful to
humans, although tests have established
that the chemicals are dangerous to terres-
trial and acquatic life forms.

But Dawson, who said the federal
government initiated dioxin studies after the
infamous Love Canal case in the mid-1970s

came to light, complained that it took too
long to get results on laboratory tests
because of the lack of facilities.

In response to a question, Kroesa said a
study leaked from Canada Health and Wel-
fare found higher rates of a variety of
cancers in residents of pulp mill communi-
ties, but that its official release has been

May Day

for peace,
for unity,

Nanaimo, Duncan & District Labor Council

delayed several times.

Condemnation of the industry’s use of
chemicals came from one of the audience
members said she was the mother to two
birth-defective children born in a pulp
manufacturing community.

Few residents left the meeting before its
adjournment time.

Greetings

for jobs,

_ May Day Greetings

to our friends in the labour movement
FOR PEACE AND JOBS!

United Fishermen & Allied Workers Union
Local #2 (Shoreworkers) -

Pacific Tribune, April 27, 1988 « 13