How many other Horne Foundries in Quebec?

What good is a standard if it’s not even close to being met?

This is the question that arises since we know that the Horne Foundry, in Rouyn-Noranda, emits 33 times more arsenic than the legal limit. Discharges that increase the risk of cancer for citizens living nearby.

But as disturbing as it is, this case must not become the tree that hides the forest. In addition to the Horne Smelter, 89 other Quebec polluters have obtained permission from the provincial government to exceed environmental standards.

Clearly, these establishments can circumvent the law… completely legally.

There may be legitimate reasons to exempt a polluter from his environmental obligations, at least temporarily. We will come back to it. But each time, it raises serious questions.

Which establishments are exempt? Why did they get such preferential treatment? What plan has the polluter put in place to get closer to the regulations? What are the effects of exceeding standards on the environment and people’s health?

Citizens have the right to get clear answers to these questions. We are still talking about the air they breathe, the water they drink and the soil they occupy!

Unfortunately, despite the government’s commitment to this, transparency is not there.

In 2017, Quebec reviewed its Environment Quality Act. The overhaul specifies that the government must keep a register of environmental exemptions granted to businesses, including the related documents that make it possible to understand them.

Five years later, this register still does not exist.

Interviewed by a journalist from The Press to find out when it would be available, the Ministry of the Environment provided this pearl.

“The future public register, as provided for by the reform of the Environment Quality Act, will come into force when the government has set the date of entry into force of this new public register. »

In short, the registry will be in effect… when it is in effect.

Until then, good luck getting your questions answered.

Exempting a polluter from his environmental obligations can be justified. Each time, this permission is granted because the establishment was there before the regulations came along – what is often called a “grandfather clause”.

The Horne Foundry, for example, has been in business for 95 years. A whole neighborhood was built around it, at a time when no one was really aware of the consequences of the fumes. When new standards are adopted, it is normal to allow a certain flexibility to the company to adapt to them.

But flexibility does not mean complacency. Exemptions should be used to get companies to put plans in place to meet environmental standards. In the law, these exemptions are called “remediation certificates”, not “permissions to discharge anything into the environment for eternity”.

The case of the Horne Foundry has shown that decontamination certificates can become rights to pollute to the detriment of public health.

It also showed serious shortcomings in access to information. We remember the famous appendix showing an increase in cancer cases which had been removed from a Public Health report. More recently, citizens and journalists had to step up to find out the company’s planned arsenic releases for the next five years.

How many similar cases are there across the province? We bet that investigative journalists will find an interesting plot there.

In the meantime, the government would do well to open its game. All agreements allowing circumvention of environmental rules must be revealed and explained in the promised register.

To be convinced of this, Quebec has only to read… its own law.