Maintaining the current level of arsenic emissions from the Horne smelter “is not tolerable” considering the health impacts of this carcinogen, said the national director of public health, the Dr Luc Boileau, during a press briefing Wednesday in Rouyn-Noranda. They must be lowered to “acceptable levels”, he argued.
If Glencore does not reduce the amount of arsenic it emits into the air, the population of Rouyn-Noranda could develop up to 14 more lung cancers over a period of 70 years, according to a report from the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) unveiled on Wednesday.
According to the document, maintaining the 2018 level — 165 nanograms per cubic meter — would cause 13 to 554 additional cases of lung cancer per million population. Reduced to the scale of the urban perimeter of Rouyn-Noranda, we are therefore talking about 1 to 14 more cases. This scenario is calculated based on exposure to smelter emissions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Bring them back to the provincial standard, set at 3 ng/m3, would reduce the risk of arsenic-related lung cancer by 48%, according to the INSPQ study. Currently, the Horne smelter has the right to emit up to 100 ng / m3 of arsenic under a special permit.
A new standard awaited
The Dr Luc Boileau avoided specifying what would be an acceptable threshold for arsenic emissions. It is the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change that will have to determine this, he said, by issuing a new certificate of attestation of conformity to Glencore next fall. This permit must be renewed every 5 years.
The ” timing is excellent” and will make it possible to formulate a “much more severe and ambitious” certificate, launched in a press scrum the Quebec Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette. He raised the possibility of a rate of 30 ng / m3while recalling that establishing such a standard is a work done in collaboration with Public Health.
Ultimately, “we must reach” the Quebec standard of 3 ng / m3, agreed Minister Charette. The latter believes that past governments have not had “high enough requirements” with regard to the Horne foundry.
According to the Dr Boileau, it is necessary to avoid “as much as possible” arsenic emissions “without closing the company”. The hard way could on the other hand remain “an option, depending on what levels [la fonderie] will be able to achieve,” he argued. He added that the decision would then be up to the community and the government.
Prime Minister François Legault had also raised on Tuesday the possibility of closing the plant if it did not commit to reducing the exposure of the population of Rouyn-Noranda to arsenic. He also said he was ready to help Glencore financially to achieve this.
In a press release, the Horne smelter said it was committed “to further reducing its atmospheric emissions”. The company is currently carrying out “a major transformation process of its facilities”, we write. Among the initiatives underway, she mentions the development of a transition zone between the foundry and the Notre-Dame district, located nearby.
“No concrete action plan”
The DD Marie-Pier Lemieux, who practices in Rouyn-Noranda, deplores that the Dr Boileau did not set clear targets for arsenic emissions. “He said that they had to be reduced, but we remained in the dark, laments the family doctor. We are not in the concrete. »
The DD Lemieux would have liked to see the Dr Boileau affirm “that we had to return to the norm [québécoise] and that it was the safe thing to do”. “Which he obviously didn’t,” she said.
Last weekend, the DD Lemieux and about fifty doctors co-signed an open letter demanding that the same emission standards be imposed “without delay” at the Horne foundry as elsewhere in Quebec.
The solidarity deputy for Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue, Émilise Lessard-Therrien, said she was not reassured “at all” by the remarks made on Wednesday by the national director of public health. “No concrete action plan has been presented to quickly reduce arsenic emissions into the air of Rouyn-Noranda,” she pointed out.
Mme Lessard-Therrien also considers “deplorable” the fact that the Dr Boileau “refused to take a clear position for the foundry to be subject to the 3 ng / m standard3 applied everywhere else in Quebec”.