CANADA

Hazardous heritage

Waste cleanup: avoiding the responsibility

This mini series explains where
hazardous wastes come from, where
they go, which are the main pollu-
tants, the industries responsible, and
how the problem is distributed ac-
toss the country.

By RICHARD LANE

“No one knows what is happening to all the

wastes in this country.’’ (Jackson & Weller
1982)

“‘T think we want to do it (dispose of wastes)
legally, I think we want to do it in an
environmentally acceptable manner. I think
we want to do it as a service to industrial
customers in a competent fashion. And I
think we want to perform all of these things in
@ manner that is profitable to all our stock-
holders.’’ (Don Fitch, V.P. of Browning-
Ferris Industries)

_ The U.S. Clean Air and Water Pollu-
tion Acts, passed in the 70s, sought to
reduce the dispersal of chemicals in the
air and waters of the U.S. These acts
encouraged the accumulation of largé
Volumes of liquid and solid hazardous
Wastes largely dumped in onsite pits and
lagoons or transported off site to land fill
disposal dumps.

Later laws emphasized resource re-
Covery and conservation which had re-
gulations requiring a ‘‘cradle to grave”’
Waste management system. (The laws
did not deal with the initial producer of
wastes and the government assumed all
Production methods were correct and
necessary.)

The cost of waste handling went up
With the further development of the
chemical industry and the new regula-
tions. A large market for private waste
disposal and for illegal ‘‘midnight dump-
Ing” developed. Ironically all these

€velopments, air, water protection laws
and regulations, tend to concentrate
toxic chemical disposal in the ground.

S$ €ventually provides a channel to the
8round water, thus possibly contaminat-
ing the water supply of millions of Cana-
dians and Americans.

: Predictably the overwhelming major-
tty of Canada’s wastes are also dumped
Into landfill sites. Some are disposed of
Night at the plants where they are pro-

Uced, others are dumped illegally into
Pees, rivers, lakes, swamps, fields,
Bey Pits, wells and even drainage

itches. Most provinces still don’t have
ele and regulations which govern the

Pace of hazardous wastes. They are
_ ated as residential garbage and are put
Mnto landfill sites. It has been estimated

at only 10 per cent of hazardous wastes
are disposed of properly.

hae Ontario, where 50 per cent of Cana-
th s hazardous wastes are produced,
fre are eight certified landfill sites and
; 0 incinerators to receive and process
a 50 million gallons of liquid industrial

astes, that the Ontario Ministry of the

hVironment (MOE) estimates are dis-
Sore of each year. Since MOE does not

Clude wastes not removed from the
Re eers site and does not distinguish
se ea hazardous and nonhazardous in
coal -Category classification (all could
a) ain hazardous wastes) it hasn’t an

Sete Picture. In fact Environment
=. ada’s estimate of Ontario hazardous

“28tes is 320 million gallons, more than

_ SIX times MOE’s estimate.

MOE’s record for fiscal year "81-82

Ws that 15 million gallons of hazar-

US Wastes were incinerated, 11 million

Ons were dumped in the eight certi-

~ and nd fills, 8 million were recycled,
'S'h million were shipped to the U.S.

~ Sho
lo

(a smaller amount was received in
Canada from the U.S.). More than 2!
million gallons, with other unclassified
industrial wastes were spread on farm
lands as fertilizer, dumped into private
landfills, spread on roads as dust depres-
sants and taken to municipal sewage
treatments.

But where are the other more than 250
million gallons that the federal govern-
ment estimated? Large quantities are
‘legally’ disposed of on the producers’
properties in landfills, lagoons, and
spread on fields. Some companies have
government permits to dump wastes into
streams that pass through their pro-
perties. In 1982, Ontario’s waste
Management Corporation estimated that
20 per cent of the waste is dumped on the
producers’ own land and another 25 per
cent into the sewage system.

The large discrepancy between
hazardous wastes produced and waste
legally disposed of is still not totally
explained. How much, where and how
they are being dumped is a mystery. The
other provinces are similarly in the dark.

Another possible waste problem in
Canada, which is not being addressed, is
the disposal of solid industrial wastes.
Although these can also be hazardous,
Canadian governments require no per-
mits for their disposal and therefore they
regularly go with residential garbage into
landfills.

Waste Management Business

The waste management business of

prosecutions for price fixing, bid rigging
and violation of environment regula-
tions, and law suits by individual resi-
dents living near BFI sites for personal
and property damages.

An investigation of BFI in the U.S.
revealed such unsafe and illegal practices
as: left-over toxic wastes in BFI disposal
trucks were allowed to run into roadside
ditches, oil containing deadly cyanide
and highly carcinogenic nitrobenzine
were sprayed by BFI onto roads, a 17-
year-old BFI worker was killed at work
by toxic fumes rising from chemical
wastes, 30,000 gallons of wastes were
allowed to flow from a BFI waste storage
tank into a public water reservoir.

WML is the second largest waste dis-
posal company in North America with a
1980 profit of 20.4 per cent of $54.9-mil-
lion. WMI, supported by the former
Davis Ontario government is the com-
pany that the community of White-
church-Stouffville fought because of the
pollution of their ground water by illegal,
excessive and unsafe dumping practices
ata WMI waste dumpin the community.

SCA does not operate waste disposal
in Canada. Nonetheless, effluent from its
5.5 mile waste pipeline to the Niagara
River in New York State enters the river
and Lake Ontario and thus the drinking
water of four million Canadians. SCA
has 42 landfill sites on 6,000 acres of land
in several American states. They have
been sued and fined several times for
questionable waste disposal practices.

mercury, cyanide, cadmium, and PCBs
have been identified in their effiuent.

Two large Canadian companies are
also heavily involved in the disposal of
liquid hazardous wastes. Tricil Ltd. is
jointly owned by Trimac, a Calgary
trucking company and Canadian Indus-
tries Ltd. of Montreal. It is the largest
Canadian disposal company with sites
across Canada and in parts of the U.S. It
operates incinerators near Sarnia, On-
tario and Mercier, Quebec for burning
liquid hazardous wastes. This Quebec
incinerator is next to a dump in a gravel
pit which recently contaminated a major
supply of water of the Surrounding farm
area. Its emissions during testing in 1982
were found to contain 13 times the
government health standard for parti-
cles. In October 1982, Quebec’s
Environment Department charged Tricil
with illegally dumping 3,500 gallons of
industrial waste into a garbage dump
northeast of Montreal. In 1978 the com-
pany was fined $15,000 for failing to op-
erate its Mississauga incinerator accord-
ing to government standards.

Another company, Laidlaw Trans-
portation Company, has steered clear of
chemical waste disposal since it was in-
volved in the 1970s in bad disposal prac-
tices forcing its liquid waste disposal op-
erations around Hamilton to be closed.
Its subsidiaries had operated a PCB-
burning incinerator and built six chemi-
cal waste holding lagoons without
government permission. Some 150,000

po r>

How

BACK- Ww oops

ooP5s
poe

CAUSE

RoADs

CHEMicHe POLLCETI Dg,

North America is dominated by three
companies, Browning-Ferris Industries
(BFI), Waste Management Inc. (WMI),
and SCA Services Inc. In 1980 BFI was
the largest waste disposal company in
North America operating 150 sites in
U.S., Canada (13 sites), Europe, and the
Middle East. Its profits in 1981 were
$45.8-million, a 15 per cent profit margin.

Since early 1981 BFI has been fighting
law suits in the U.S. which total $30- to
$40-million, including government

Help Our Polluted Environment

(HOPE), an active citizens’ environ-
mental group, has fought successfully to
deny waste dump sites to SCA in Illinois
and New Jersey.

SCA has been fingered as Mafia con-
nected. Their officials have been caught
attempting to bribe town officials in Ohio
and New York. At Niagara Falls SCA
has treated hazardous wastes from Bel-
gium, West Germany, Switzerland,
Canada, and the U.S. Arsenic, lead,

gallons of liquid waste disappeared from
one of the lagoons without explanation
but apparently was drained into the har-
bor by Laidlaw employees. At its land-
fille site at least 270,000 gallons of liquid
waste leaked out of a tank at the Hamil-
ton solidification plant. Laidlaw was
charged and fined for falsifying waybill
records. Each of these facilities had been
closed down by the end of 1980.

Richard Lane is the pseudonym of a work-
ing scientist.

300 slam apartheid a

OTTAWA — ‘Botha, you must know, oe =
Apartheid has got to go!’’, chanted 300 people here
Oct. 26 at the South African embassy, just across
the road from the Prime Minister’s Sussex Street

residence.

Organized by the Ottawa Anti-Apartheid Group,
a recently-formed coalition of church and labor,
the marchers urged Canadians to boycott all stores
which refuse to remove South African products

from their shelves.

Main speaker, CUPW president Jean-Claude
Parrot, said the struggle must take place every-
where where apartheid products are sold and in
‘each nation maintaining diplomatic ties with Pre-
toria. He stressed that the main battles are taking
place in South African streets, workplaces and
schools, and that more pressure Is needed from
anti-apartheid forces everywhere. Mulroney
bowed to pressure in his UN speech, Parrot said,
but remains reluctant in implementing real sanc-

tions.

Res fr a“

t Ottawa demo

“Hey Joe, Apartheid No!” was the message.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 13, 1985 e 5

ince ian aes