Ontario budget leaves mercury expert worried about 'deja vu all over again'

A team of scientists set to resume field work on the mercury contamination in Ontario's English-Wabigoon River next week is worried their work may be shelved.

The concern comes after the provincial budget last week allocated just $2.1 million dollars to fund "pre-remediation work" on the river — far short of the millions needed to clean up the decades-old industrial pollution.

More than 9,000 kilograms of mercury was dumped in the English-Wabigoon river from the paper mill in Dryden in the 1960s and 70s. A study released by Japanese experts last fall shows 90 per cent of the people downstream at Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemonng First Nations continue to experience symptoms of mercury poisoning. 

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"If there isn't additional funding allocated very soon for the engineering design, we won't be able to keep to the premier's timetable," said John Rudd, the head scientist for the Grassy Narrows team studying the river.

Rudd said he was with Grassy Narrows Chief Simon Fobister and environmentalist David Suzuki when Premier Kathleen Wynne committed to a full cleanup and established an aggressive timeline that would see remediation work begin next year.

"I thought they were committed to doing the cleanup, but I guess it's not going to happen," Fobister said after last week's budget failed to account for the full cost of remediation.

For the people of Grassy Narrows that means "more mercury poisoning — forever," Fobister said.

Rudd said about $1.5 million is needed for engineers to work with the scientists this summer to design the remediation phase of the project.

The plan for "accelerated natural remediation" of the river system would take about a decade and cost "less than $100 million" for the overall cleanup, Rudd said.

Grassy Narrows First Nation had asked for the premier to put her promise from the February meeting in writing and put money for the cleanup into a trust to protect it from being chipped away by future governments. That hasn't happened.

Now Rudd said he is concerned and disappointed that he may be reliving an experience he had three decades ago when he was part of a government team that developed a very similar plan for cleaning up the mercury from the Dryden mill.

"After that study our report was put on a shelf and it sat there until we got back to work on this a year or two ago," he said. "I'm just hoping this isn't deja vu all over again."

The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change said discussions with both Grassy Narrows and Wabaseemoong are continuing.

"We are committed to working with the communities and other partners to identify potentially contaminated sites and create and implement a comprehensive remediation action plan for the English-Wabigoon River," a spokesperson for the ministry said.

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