Public Health knitted an honorable compromise by recommending that the Horne smelter be imposed a “temporary” emission standard of 15 nanograms of arsenic per cubic meter in the air, before arriving at the ultimate objective of 3 ng/m3, applicable everywhere in Quebec. Achieving a goal in stages is a laudable strategy, but it involves a risk, and it is that one stops along the way, leaving the population in a fog… toxic.
It is scandalous enough that levels of pollution with serious implications for the health of citizens have been tolerated, government after government, in rather convenient indolence. Now that we know the impact on the rate of lung cancer, among other health problems, it would be troubling to abandon the locals along the way.
The 15 ng/m target3 of arsenic per year will protect pregnant women, their fetus and toddlers from the worst, in addition to helping to reduce the risk of lung cancer in the general population. It would be a “rigorous, serious and protective” threshold, the Dr Luc Boileau, national director of public health. But a “temporary” path, he explained without specifying for how long, “in a road that goes towards the threshold of 3”.
Ideally, of course, the people of Rouyn-Noranda would stop living in a poisoned parallel reality.
It’s a safe bet that the government will buy this step-by-step strategy, because in addition to the impact of emissions of arsenic and other metals on the health of populations and the environment, Quebec must also take into account the technical feasibility of its requirements for the company owned by the Swiss multinational Glencore. The Horne Smelter is due to unveil a retrofit plan next week that will hopefully demonstrate its commitment to reducing emissions. But she could not commit to a standard of less than 20 ng/m3 until now. Nothing, absolutely nothing, indicates that it is technically able to reach the national threshold of 3. Will it be able to?
The elected officials take care to remind as soon as they can that the Foundry is not “in default”, although it is all cheerfully demonized. In terms of compliance with standards, this is very true, since the company benefits from an exemption allowing it to emit 100 ng/m3 since 2021. Prior to this, the exemption was set at 200 ng/m3 ! Current negotiations aim to find the ideal value for the next five years. The Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, must give answers next week.
Although Prime Minister François Legault has raised the possibility of closing the Horne Foundry if it continues its harmful polluting activities for the population, it is not at all by popular demand. This adds a slight economic spice to the equation, let’s face it.
In its analysis, Quebec must not forget to add a deadline to the equation proposed by Public Health, so that the targets do not remain floating objectives without consequence. It would also be good if he adhered to the idea of a daily standard – set at 200 ng/m3 for arsenic, 30 ng/m3 for cadmium and 350 ng/m3 for lead by Public Health experts — because in the past the company has gone way over those milestones. As revealed The dutybetween January 2017 and March 2021, analysis of the air in Rouyn-Noranda showed that arsenic measurements exceeded 1000 ng/m3 five times.
There is no more time to lose. The first alarm signals pointing to the possible risks to the health of the population suffering from polluting emissions from the copper processing plant were issued by experts during the 1960s! In addition to arsenic, the Horne Foundry would release more than twenty contaminants into the air, sometimes up to 50 km around.
At the beginning of July, the INSPQ had unveiled the results of a study confirming that higher concentrations of arsenic and cadmium in the air of Rouyn-Noranda did indeed lead to a surplus of cases of lung cancer. We were not then able to determine precisely the other health effects, but we suspect in particular other types of lung diseases and a greater proportion of babies with low birth weight.
A whole section of crucial information also remains to be discovered, and this is the health risk of the mixture of different contaminants discharged by the foundry. The INSPQ wondered in July about the “multiplicative” and not just “additive” effects of the mixture of substances. Since no study exists on the subject, this gray area hovers, in addition to the rest.
Everything therefore militates for a political action that will exude benevolence and efficiency after so much laxity and voluntary blindness. Protecting the health of citizens must be the key value in government decision-making.