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Environmental groups call on
14 "hold-out" municipalities to stop spreading Dombind - a dioxin-containing
road dust suppressant
The 14 "hold-out" municipalities are:
In Northumberland County - Municipality of Brighton, Cramahe Township, Alnwick/Haldimand Township, Municipality of Port Hope, Municipality of Trent Hills
In Haliburton County - Dysart et al Township, Municipality of Highlands East
In Peterborough County - Asphodel/Norwood Township, Otonabee/South Monaghan Township
In Hastings County - Tyendinaga Township, Tudor & Cashel Township
In Lennox & Addington County - Stone Mills Township
In Huron County - Municipality of South Huron
In Timiskaming District
- Town of Haileybury
The Federation of Ontario Naturalists (FON) and Quinte Watershed Cleanup
(QWC) have just sent a letter to each of the 14 Ontario municipalities
that intend to use the dioxin-containing road dust suppressant Dombind
during 2002, urging them to stop using it now. The Ministry of the Environment
(MOE) will require Dombind use on roads to end forever by October 31 of
this year.
Dombind is the concentrated liquid waste from Norampac Inc.'s cardboard
mill in Trenton. Norampac has offered Dombind free to municipalities for
several years. The number of municipalities using Dombind has plummeted
from 90 in the mid 1990s to only 14 last year.
Norampac has used a number of legal manoeuvres over the past three years,
both at Ontario's Environmental Review Tribunal and in the courts, to
attempt to extend the use of Dombind on roads for several more years.
But in February of this year, the company reached the end of the Dombind
road when its final request for an appeal was turned down in the courts.
FON and QWC participated in several of the legal proceedings, represented
by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, to press for Dombind use to stop.
"Clearly, all other municipalities have recognized that Dombind is
harmful to the environment and to public health and have therefore switched
to other, less environmentally harmful dust suppressants," wrote
Linda Pim of FON and Manfred Koechlin of QWC in their letter to municipalities.
"By this time next year, Dombind will not be available to you as
an option for dust suppression, so why not do the right thing and switch
away from Dombind now?"
In a separate letter, FON and QWC called upon the Ministry of the Environment
to issue an order preventing the Municipality of Brighton (part of which
was formerly Brighton Township) from using any Dombind at all this year.
Norampac's annual Dombind monitoring report for 2001 shows that on July
1, ditches beside Schriver Road in the Municipality of Brighton contained
51.9 parts per trillion (ppt) dioxins - over five times the permitted
maximum of 10 ppt. The average ditch dioxin level for all of 2001 on Schriver
Road was 34.45 ppt - over three times the allowable level. The two environmental
groups also called upon MOE to order remedial work on Schriver Road to
remove the dioxin-contaminated soils and send them for proper treatment
as hazardous waste.
While no chemical road dust suppressant is completely safe for the environment,
Dombind is commonly considered the most toxic. It readily contaminates
waterways near roads, reduces dissolved oxygen in river, streams and wetlands
killing fish and other aquatic life, and causes the accumulation of highly
toxic dioxins in the environment. Other dust suppressants are available
and are in widespread use by other Ontario municipalities.
The Federation of Ontario Naturalists, founded in 1931, is a province-wide
conservation organization with 119 members groups; FON works to protect
wildlife habitat and natural areas across Ontario. Quinte Watershed Cleanup
(QWC) is the Public Advisory Committee to the Bay of Quinte Remedial Action
Plan Restoration Council; QWC has grown into a regional environmental
organization addressing numerous environmental issues.
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For further information:
Linda Pim, Federation of Ontario Naturalists
(416) 444-8419 ext. 243
Manfred Koechlin, Quinte Watershed
Cleanup
(613) 962-9492
