(Rouyn-Noranda) The national director of public health, Dr Luc Boileau, will provide an update this afternoon on environmental health in Rouyn-Noranda, during a press briefing which will take place after a presentation by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ).
Posted at 6:15 a.m.
The Dr Boileau will speak to reporters at 2 p.m. alongside the acting director of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Regional Public Health Department, Dr Stephane Trepanier.
Just before the press conference, INSPQ experts will hold a technical briefing with media representatives to present to them in detail the data related to the topic of the day.
This is the second visit of the Dr Boileau in Rouyn-Noranda this summer. He had held a first press briefing in this city of Abitibi-Témiscamingue on July 6 as part of the presentation of a new INSPQ study.
The document revealed that, over a period of 70 years, an excess number of citizens of Rouyn-Noranda, between one and 14, would develop cancer if the company Glencore did not reduce the concentration of arsenic in the air produced by the Horne Foundry.
Airborne arsenic emissions from the Horne Smelter have been the subject of much discussion in recent weeks. Currently, an agreement with the government allows smelter emissions to reach 100 ng/m3i.e. 33 times more than the Quebec standard of 3 ng/m3.
Both the smelter and the government have acknowledged that this target will have to be revised downwards in the next agreement, but no exact threshold has been confirmed so far.
Monday evening, the Rouyn-Noranda municipal council unanimously adopted a resolution asking that “the activities of the Horne smelter aim to achieve the environmental standards in force for all heavy metals and fine particles discharged into the ‘air “.
This resolution, formulated for the attention of the Government of Quebec, is in addition to that of June 13, which notably called for an interdepartmental action plan centered on the health of the citizens of Rouyn-Noranda.
The city council also requested that the next ministerial authorization issued to Glencore by the Ministry of the Environment include daily emission ceilings.