Hey everybody. Please read this carefully. Its a letter I received from my best friend Dave gunning. We need help. Northern pulp is currently running at 100% capacity 24/7 with NO FILTRATION SYSTEMS IN PLACE!! Zero, nada, nothing. Driving into pictou town when the plume is hitting the town is like entering a WW 1 mustard gas attack in progress. Anybody who sees this, PLEASE HELP US!! The plant is literally killing people over there as we speak and they intend to run it as it is now until may of 2015!!!!! Something Must be done! Hello JP, I am working with a group to help plan a concert in Pictou on Tuesday September the 9th to bring awareness to an urgent situation facing Pictou County. Northern Pulp, our local bleached kraft pulp mill owned by Asia Pulp and Paper in Indonesia is currently operating with non-functioning filtration equipment on their smoke stacks and grossly exceeding permit levels. We are trying to pressure the Government to intervene because of immediate health concerns as well as economic concerns. Business are closing and people are leaving or trying to leave. Consider the following facts: · In the US pulp and paper mills have to meet EPA standards which are much more stringent than what we have here in NS. Other Provinces in Canada have adopted the EPA standards for pulp and paper mills but Nova Scotia has not. This mill could not legally operate in the US or in other Provinces in Canada. The mill is not even legally operating here, laws are being broken, but the violations ignored. · In 2012 Northern Pulp emitted a level of Particulate Matter 2.5 (PM2.5) that put them 336,900 % above the Federal Reporting Threshold level as set by Environment Canada. The Threshold level that Environment Canada deems noteworthy is 0.3 tons annually and Northern Pulp released 1011 tons in 2012. source Environment Canada National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) · According to WHO (World Health Organization) air pollution from PM2.5 is a large contributor / cause of: strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, and both chronic and acute respiratory diseases including asthma. who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/ · According to Statistics Canadas 2013 report out of all the Provinces in Canada, Nova Scotia has the highest cancer incidents rate. And Pictou County has the highest cancer incidents rate in Nova Scotia. Northern Pulp is currently by far the worse polluter in the Province of Nova Scotia. In 2012 63% of all PM2.5 released in the Province was released from Northern Pulp. Thats more than all the power plants and other industries combined. PM 2.5 travel up to 500 miles when it is air borne. Although there have been reported air/water overages and directives issued by the NS Environment Northern Pulp have continued to ramped up their production. They recently boasted that theyd reached their highest production rate in mill history on July 15th in spite of the fact that they are operating with no electrostatic precipitator to filter out harmful substances. This is an emergency situation and has reached the point where it is both unacceptable to local businesses that are being smoked out and unsafe for local residents to breathe. Many of us are very concerned about our children breathing this stuff and many of us do not have the option to leave. The mill is broken and needs to be cleaned-up. It has to happen soon before more local businesses are forced to close and more people move away. There is so much to this story including Boat Harbour which has been considered by many as Nova Scotias dirty little secret. If you have just a few moments watch this short documentary on Boat Harbour (CBCs The Fifth Estate 988 (13min) - youtube/watch?v=3Tto9FP7m_U), the other environmental disaster being caused by this Mill. This will be an outdoor concert held on September 9th on the Pictou Waterfront beside the deCoste Centre. Ive lived here all of my life and its the first time I can remember not being able to see across the road in my neighbourhood. Im reaching out to you to see if youd be interested in coming to Pictou to sing a song on the evening of September 9th to help bring awareness to the cause. Thanks so much, Dave
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 02:47:21 +0000
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