(Transcript of CTV “Canada am” interview on May 7, 2001)
CTV - CANADA am
Monday May 7, 2001
PRINGLE: The Sydney tar ponds are some of the most toxic land in this country. Ottawa has said they will move as many as 70 families away temporarily to study environmental effects yet again. The region is home to 700,000 tons of toxic waste that have come out of the old coke ovens. And the Sierra Club’s Elizabeth May is on a hunger strike right now until the Nova Scotia government and the federal government do more. And Ann Marie Ross is with us from the site. Elizabeth is in Ottawa. Good morning, you two.
ROSS: Good morning, Valerie.
MAY: Good morning.
PRINGLE: Elizabeth, you would think that you might be happy that the health minister said he wants to intervene and at least get people moved away temporarily.
MAY: Well, of course, that was on the first day of my hunger strike that Minister Rock made that announcement. And I was very gratified. I think Minister Rock is personally sympathetic. And it was a step in the right direction. But it doesn’t begin to deal with the reason I went on a hunger strike. It doesn’t begin to deal with Ann’s problems. We need a commitment to permanent relocation on a sensible program, not ad hoc decisions to move this family today and then wait two years and consider moving more people later. People are dying and no one is acting as if it is an urgent health problem.
PRINGLE: Elizabeth, how many people have died?
MAY: There is no way to know, Valerie. The steel mill and coke ovens have created the highest cancer rate in Canada. It is the most toxic site in Canada and second-most toxic site in North America.
PRINGLE: After what, the Love Canal?
MAY: Oh, it’s much bigger than Love Canal. Love Canal was 35,000 tons of toxic waste and, as you mentioned, this is 700,000 tons in the estuary alone, and a further huge amount of toxic chemicals in the 125-acre coke oven site which is contaminated to depths of 80 feet. This is an environmental nightmare. And the thing that people don’t realize is that it is smack in the middle of a residential area of an urban area. And the neighbourhoods of Whitney Pier, Ashby and the north end of Sydney are stuck in toxic waste.
PRINGLE: Ann, you have heard even recently the medical officer of health of Nova Scotia tell you that is actually okay to live there.
MAY: That’s what made me snap, Valerie.
PRINGLE: Well, hold on. I’ve got to ask Ann about that.
ROSS: The chief medical officer himself, Dr. Jeff Scott, I cannot believe that Dr. Scott would actually make a statement like that —
PRINGLE: Well, he has been making those statements for years. This has been going on for years.
ROSS: And it’s absurd that he should make that because, No. 1, Dr. Jeff Scott has never been into my home. Nobody from the Department of Health has ever stepped foot into my home to see the situation that my daughter and I live in.
PRINGLE: But even though, Ann, they relocated you at one point for 41 days in a hotel?
ROSS: Yes, that’s correct.
PRINGLE: So, they relocated you but they never bothered to look in your house, what’s coming in your basement?
ROSS: Never. They came in, they tested the water that was in my basement, and I was sent back with a statement that said the water that’s in my basement met the potable drinking water standards.
PRINGLE: Elizabeth, so Dr. Jeff Scott sent you over the top. Why can’t we get — and I need a reasonably short answer — a solution on this after all this time?
MAY: I think it’s a lack of political leadership. The issue keeps being handled by three levels of government and no one wants to say what is very, very obvious, which is that for a long time a state- run enterprise, SYSCO, polluted an area of this country more than any other area, except perhaps Eastern Europe and people are living in toxic waste and they are dying. And someone has to step forward. And I hope it will be Minister Allan Rock to say, Look, I wouldn’t want my kids living here. No Canadian should live with levels of arsenic such as Ann has in her basement and her backyard. And other cancer-causing chemicals. These people should be moved. It’s just common sense.
PRINGLE: Well, Ann Marie, some people would look at you and go, “How do you keep your daughter there? Why don’t you just move?”
ROSS: Where my going to go? That’s my home. Who is going to buy it? I can’t resell my home and end up as a bag lady on the street. I have a daughter.
PRINGLE: So is your best hope the federal government now, because you have had no satisfaction from the Nova Scotia government?
ROSS: Nothing whatsoever. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was moved back, my daughter and I. We were left there. Nobody has been back. I’ve got a monitoring well in that reads 68 to 200 times higher than the acceptable levels of arsenic, lead, poly- hydrocarbons, all kinds of toxic chemicals. And nothing is being done. We are left there. That is outside my home, it’s inside my basement, it’s everywhere. So we are left there.
PRINGLE: So, Elizabeth, how long can you go? Do you think your hunger strike will spur any action, if the actual living conditions of the people there haven’t?
MAY: People in Sydney are politically forgotten and politically expendable. The community is basically poor and doesn’t have political clout, and that’s why I am sitting in front of Parliament Hill on a hunger strike, because I can’t stand to see —. Ann and I have become friends. We’re both single mothers, we both have little girls, we’ve got a lot in common. But when I finish my hunger strike I go home to house that doesn’t have arsenic in the basement.
PRINGLE: Well, thank you very much for talking to us this morning, both of you.
MAY: Thank you, Valerie. God bless you, Ann.
ROSS: You too.