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The public will not be allowed to know whether a federal environmental assessment was recommended for Northern Pulp’s proposed effluent treatment plant before it is a moot point.

According to the legislation governing it, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency had 45 days from Northern Pulp’s Jan. 31 registration of its controversial project with the province to determine whether a significantly longer federal assessment would be required.

With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau having suggested it was a provincial responsibility during a recent visit to Prince Edward Island, The Chronicle Herald sought to find out whether staff at the federal agency responsible for conducting federal assessments shared that point of view.

So we filed a freedom of information request with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to get a copy of the recommendation they were mandated to provide Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna by mid- March.

On Thursday the CEAA responded that they will need 150 days to find the recommendation they made to McKenna and to consult with her department on releasing it.

The notice of a 120-day extension to the legislated requirement of a response within 30 days, adds that if McKenna’s department challenges the release of the recommendation, it could take longer.

That would, coincidently, push the release of the recommendation until after the federal election scheduled for Oct. 21. The Chronicle Herald is appealing the delays.

“They told us it wouldn’t be political but we’re certainly beginning to think that it is,”

- Allan McCarthy, fisherman

Allan McCarthy was one of the fishermen who met environmental agency staff last fall as they collected information in preparation for the recommendation it would make to the federal environment minister.

Northern Pulp can be seen in the background, and the Boat Harbour treatment facility in the foreground. - Christian Laforce

“They told us it wouldn’t be political but we’re certainly beginning to think that it is,” said McCarthy.

“We’re still in disbelief that a decision (on a federal assessment) hasn’t been made yet because as soon as (Northern Pulp) puts shovels in the ground the feds are automatically out of it.”

McCarthy said that a history of backroom dealing between the provincial government and the mill has created a climate of distrust in Pictou County. The federal agency’s refusal to release the recommendation it made to another federal department that is dragging its feet on the decision adds to that distrust.

“I think it would be scandalous if the environment minister didn’t follow the recommendation of the CEAA,” said fisherman John Collins, who never got a response to his email to the agency earlier this year requesting they release the recommendation.

“This pipe is going 4.1 kilometres out into a federally regulated body of water. I can’t see how it’s not a federal responsibility … I can’t help but think we’re getting the runaround and that this process would be more transparent if we didn’t have the same party governing the provincial and federal governments.”

Kathy Cloutier, who speaks for Northern Pulp, reaffirmed Thursday that mill management would be happy to comply with a federal assessment so long as the province granted an extension to the Boat Harbour Act to allow them to continue operating in the meantime.

The Boat Harbour Act demands the current effluent treatment plant — which is owned by the province and leased to the mill — close by January 2020.

Cloutier said mill management continues to work toward answering the additional questions demanded by the provincial Environment Department before it could rule on whether to allow the project.

“It’s too early to put a timeline on that,” said Cloutier.

But even before the focus report was demanded by the province, mill management was estimating the plant would have to idle for months before the new facility was up and running if they weren’t granted an extension to continue to use Boat Harbour.

That has the province’s forestry industry terrified.

On Wednesday night some 50 members of the industry packed the council chambers of the Municipality of the District of Cumberland County while logging equipment lined the road outside.

Cumberland County is the largest supplier of wood fibre to the pulp mill and logs to this province’s sawmills.

“We’re watching a train wreck about to happen and that train wreck is going to happen some day in January next winter,” Ian Ripley, general manager of the Athol Forestry Coop, which represents some 250 woodlot owners in northern Nova Scotia, told the council.

He, along with the harvesters and truckers gathered in the council chambers, asked council to write Premier Stephen McNeil requesting a 21-month extension to the Boat Harbour Act to allow for Northern Pulp’s continued operation until the new facility gets built.

Council will consider the request at its May 15 regular meeting.

“I couldn’t help but agree after hearing the presentation last night that any stoppage of Northern Pulp would have devastating economic effects,” Warden Allison Gillis said Thursday.

Meanwhile fishermen like Collins and McCarthy warn that the upwards of 60 million litres of treated effluent the mill proposes to pump into the Northumberland Strait will damage their industry.

With files from Darrell Cole, Amherst News.

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