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‘North’s environment under gun

from pulp mill expansions

By ROY DAHL

YELLOWKNIFE, NWT — Shesits
at the head table and closely scrutinizes
the faces in her audience. Will they
favour her opinion? Will they sympa-
thize with her cause? Nervously, she
smiles at the crowd gathered in Yellow-
knife’s Northern United Place.

She ts Colleen McCrory, chair of the
Valhalla Wilderness Society, based in
New Denver, B.C. She is launching yet
another environmental campaign. This
time her target, among many she’s had
in the past 15 years, is the expanding
pulp and paper industry in Alberta.

McCrory knows this campaign will
be a struggle, an uphill task with no
easy solutions. Tonight marks the start
of a two-month tour intended to
enlighten northern Canadians about
the effects of having mills upriver from
where they live.

“It seems like the whole nation is
going into pulp,” says Equinox maga-
zine’s Environmentalist of the Year. In
recent years, she says, there’s been “a
huge land giveaway” in B.C.

And now, she says, Alberta is follow-

ing that lead, allowing mills to be freely ~

built along the Peace and Athabasca
rivers, both of which flow into Great
Slave Lake. It is a situation, she
explains, that could eventually poison
the entire Mackenzie River system with
waste and possibly create unnecessary
flood conditions in some areas.

“Some of the largest pulp mills in the

world are going into northern Alberta,”

she says. The entire issue is tied to the
north’s future, she suggests.

Major corporations like Proctor and
Gamble, Canadian Forest Products,
Weyerhauser and Weldwood are
among 20 that have released expansion
plans to their existing operations in
Alberta this year.

According to a release issued by the
Alberta Wilderness Association in
October, such bold plans are not neces-
sarily a boon to the Alberta economy,
contrary to information provided by
individual corporations.

Alberta-Pacific, for example, recently
announced plans to build a pulp mill in
the Lac La Biche region of north-
eastern Alberta on the shores of the
Athabasca River, at a cost of $1.3
billion, creating approximately 1,100
jobs in the process.

As a whole, the industry has
announced plans to build a total of
seven pulp and paper mills, creating a
total of 15,000 jobs, over the next 10
years. It is, according to one company,
the right time for expansion because
studies conducted by the Alberta pro-
vincial government have indicated a
profound need for high-quality paper.
And prices are declining, making it a
good time to build capacity for the next
cycle of higher prices.

The Wilderness Association, how-
ever, takes employment figures to task,
indicating that by the time all the costs
are in, it will cost the industry approxi-
mately $250,000 to create each new job.
That doesn’t inspire public confidence
or show good management proce-
dures, suggests McCrory.

“You can be sure that all of these
mega-projects are going to be cutting
(trees) at such a rate that it won’t be
controlled,” she warns her audience,
pausing to ensure her words have not
fallen on deaf ears.

6 e Pacific Tribune, February 19, 1990

Aloof government, corporate unwil-
lingness to do environmental impact
studies, and community ignorance of
corporate activities are all discussed
and attacked by McCrory.

“We are the only ones who can turn
things around,” she says, adding that
“we still don’t know the global signifi-
cance of all of this — what we can tell
you is that there will be an impact on
the north. Your rivers will be poisoned,
and clear-cut logging, right up to the
Northwest Territories, will have an
impact on your communities and wild-
life.

“Our position has never been to say
no to logging, but we cannot afford to
have mega-projects in this country to
the extent they are planning.”

Doug Crowell, a freelance journalist
and media producer accompanying
McCrory on the tour, shares similar
concerns.

“The forest industry is becoming
more and more globalized,” he says,
asking people to look beyond the faces
of each corporation planning expan-
sion.

“They're all transnational. They
don’t care that it’s Alberta they’re
expanding into. The land rush is on all
over the world.”

The Peace River pulp mill owned by
Daishowa of Japan which received
$65 million in government aid and a

20-year lease on 24,000 square

kilometres of forest. At left, Colleen
McCrory.

He says his goal is not to put an end
to logging, or the pulp and paper indus-
try — what he wants is more planning
and thorough environmental assess-
ments.

“It is important to assess the poten-
tial damage to the environment,” he
says, because “‘in the next decade, peo-
ple will be asked to make a lot choices.
We have to make sure we have wilder-
ness left.”

Both speakers are, to a great degree,
a reflection of the environmental
movement as a whole. Appealing to
grass-root communities for both finan-
cialand moral support, they are becom-
ing more passionate and articulate in
their concerns.

In holding workshops in both Native
and non-Native communities, they
have been surprised to find that some
communities have neither been con-
sulted nor-informed of the planned
arrival of a mill in their area. To further
complicate the matter, McCrory says,
is the fact that some companies have yet
to initiate environmental studies to
fully assess the impact of their expan-
sion plans on the communities nearby.

It is a recipe for disaster, she says, in
view of some of the massive amounts of
both air and water pollution still evi-
dent within the industry. According to
her figures, only three of 23 mills in
B.C. alone were found to meet federal
and provincial pollution regulations.

“They’re dumping millions and mil-
lions of tons of crap and poison into the
rivers,” she concludes. “Not one pulp
mill should be built until all pulp mills
in this country are in compliance with
the law.”

Reprinted with permission from Native
Press, a newspaper serving the Dene and
Metis people in the north.

Free trade closes
battery plants

WINNIPEG — A_ union representative for
163 battery-plant workers facing a plant shut-
down this-spring said there is no doubt the U.S-
Canada trade agreement is the major factor in the
U.S. corporate owners ordering the closure.

Ron Joyal, staff representative for Canadian
Autoworkers Local 144 at Varta Industries here,

said he expects Milwaukee-based Johnson Con-
trols Inc. will move next to shut down Varta’s —
plant in St. Thomas, Ont. and supply the Cana- —

dian market from Johnson’s operation of 16 bat-
tery plants in the U.S.

Tariffs.on imported batteries are already being —
reduced and will be eliminated in the next few

years.
Johnson Industries says that half the Winnipeg

production which was being sold in eastern Can- —
ada will be shifted to St. Thomas. A small distri-
bution centre will operate in Winnipeg for the

time being and may be supplied from St. Thomas.

Johnson Industries purchased Varta recently
from a West German corporation and_ told
Investment Canada bureaucrats when it applied
for the takeover that the Winnipeg plant would
close.

That information was passed to the provincial
Conservative government but kept secret from
the workers who had to find out from Johnson
Industries officials at the meeting where the shut-
down was announced.

Joyal said the workers are angry that the pro-
vincial and federal governments conducted a
coverup. In media reports, workers said they
won't believe any promises now about severance
packages or possible retraining. The union

. believes. Johnson Industries purchased Varta. at

this time to get control of one of the main compet-
itors for the Canadian market and put it out of
business.

In addition to the 163 production workers who
are members of the USWA, Varta’s Winnipeg
operation has 12 non-union employees.

Ruling renews fears
of farm foreclosures

At a time when the banks are becoming major
landholders in western Canada, the Supreme
Court has dealt farmers another blow. A Feb. 1
decision gives chartered banks “far, far too much
power,” according to National Farmers Union
president Wayne Easter.

The ruling allows banks to seize farm equip-
ment pledged in collateral under Section 178 of
the Bank Act, without giving notice to the debtor
as stipulated under Saskatchewan’s “Limitation
of Civil Rights Act.”

The case
Arthur Hall, who was suing the Bank of Mont-
real. Various interveners, including the NFU,
argued that banks should be required to follow
the steps outlined in the provincial legislation, but
the Supreme Court ruled the legislation was “not
applicable” to federally-chartered banks.

As a result, Easter noted, farmers could have

‘their equipment seized “at the height of the harv-

est, with no notice.” He called for changes to the
Bank Act.

“Common sense dictates the banks should
serve notice of their intent to seize farm equip-
ment, but under the present law they apparently
don’t have to. Instead, they can rely on the ‘big
stick’ approach, and severely limit the options
open to farmers trying to work out settlements
with other creditors,” he said.

The fact that the federal solicitor-general and
two provincial governments — Saskatchewan
and New Brunswick — were interveners on
Hall’s behalf in the case led Easter to hope that
necessary amendments may be forthcoming, but
to date, he said, “while farmers are facing the
worst financial crisis of our time, the federal
government seems blissfully unaware something
is amiss.”

involved Saskatchewan farmer —