Lawyers for Friends of the Northumberland Strait say Nova Scotia’s environment minister has a conflict of interest and have asked her to step away from an environmental assessment of Northern Pulp’s plan take effluent from a pulp mill and dump it in the middle of the Strait.

Ecojustice sent Environment Minister Margaret Miller a letter this week asking her to recuse herself and delegate her authority to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency given “the significant and financial interest” the province has in ensuring the assessment is concluded as quickly as possible.

“Essentially, the main issue we have is that the province is much too close to this project,” said Ecojustice lawyer James Gunvaldsen Klaassen.

“It’s too close in the sense that it faces consequences if it makes decisions of a certain nature that are favourable to the environment. It creates an apprehension of bias and undermines the integrity of the environmental assessment process. Impartiality is a key element of that process. Environmental concerns have to be weighed fairly.”

He said there are also contractual agreements between the province and Northern Pulp that have been around a long time — and are ongoing — and involve people from multiple provincial governments, of all political stripes.

In the letter to the minister, Ecojustice said “those could be interpreted as requiring you to favour Northern Pulp when deciding whether to approve the EA.”

“They’re very entangled in terms of obligations to each other. Those agreements even extend to how the company can be regulated,” Gunvaldsen Klaassen said.

“We’re concerned those agreements are going to get in the way of a fair, impartial and legitimate review of the issues that are being raised with this project.”

The players involved include John Hamm, chair of Northern Pulp’s board, who was the premier of Nova Scotia when the provincial government extended the company’s 30-year lease. Bernard Miller, the lawyer who, for years, acted as Northern Pulp’s adviser on environmental compliance, was hand-picked by current Premier Stephen McNeil to work for his government.

Miller is currently working as a senior adviser on the executive council of the provincial government, which says he’s excluded from all discussions about the mill. However, the province’s conflict-of-interest commissioner, Merlin Nunn, said Miller was in a conflict because of his close association with the mill.

However, a spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Department of Environment said the minister and the department are focused only on environmental protection, and not involved in conversations on any other matters involving Northern Pulp.

“Neither the department nor Minister Miller is in a conflict of interest on this project,” said Rachel Boomer.

“As Minister of the Environment, Minister Miller is responsible to ensure this project is reviewed based on science and the best available evidence. Both the department and Minister Miller take this role very seriously.”

After years of receiving industrial-scale effluent from the kraft pulp mill in Pictou, Boat Harbour Basin is scheduled to be closed by the Nova Scotia government this year. (Kraft is a process of converting wood into wood pulp, which consists of almost pure cellulose fibres, the main component of paper.) That means Northern Pulp must come up with a new treatment plan for its effluent.

The proposal is to build a 10-kilometre, $19-million pipe and dump the treated sludge from the mill directly into the Strait.

Northern Pulp has committed to a new $70-million oxygen delignification system to improve the quality of the effluent it would discharge. But as Michael Harris wrote for iPolitics in October, fishermen and members of Pictou Landing First Nation are adamant the idea is a bad one. They say the estuary that once supported a variety of marine life has become a toxic lake and a national disgrace because of the dumping, on par with the poisoned tailings ponds of Alberta and North Sydney.

Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan has also made his concerns clear.

Gunvaldsen Klaassen said the province has designated this as a phase one project, which involves an environmental assessment with the lowest level of scrutiny.

As for why the province went that route, he said that’s a good question. The decision was made more than a year ago, and based on the fact this was seen as a modification of an existing facility.

“We determined that a Class 1 environmental assessment was an appropriate level of oversight,” Boomer said.

“Both our Class 1 and Class 2 environmental assessment processes are robust. Our Class 1 process requires that the proponent do more work at the beginning of the process.”

Gunvaldsen Klaassen said that’s not of much comfort to area residents who rely on this water.

“We don’t think it’s appropriate given what’s at stake and that it’s in the middle of fishing grounds and a sensitive ecosystem.”

The province’s assessment process begins with registration, which is triggered by Northern Pulp’s submission of its 2,000-page plan. The company filed its materials on Jan. 30, so registration began a week later on Feb. 7, starting the formal process.

Gunvaldsen Klaassen said Ecojustice and its clients — as well as the public — now have just 30 days to review and comment on it. Much of it they haven’t seen before and will require expertise to understand. Many have said more time is needed to review the materials.

Once the 30 days are up, the minister then has 20 days to make a decision.

“At that point she can accept or reject the project, or she can order more reports. She could ask for a focus report or further specific information. Or she could order a full environmental impact assessment. That’s a much more intensive process,” Gunvaldsen Klaassen said.

That’s what a group of Independent senators want to see happen, however.

In November, Sen. Brian Francis, former chief of the Abegweit First Nation on Prince Edward Island, Sen. Dan Christmas, a leader with Nova Scotia’s Mi’kmaw Nation, Sen. Diane Griffin, a conservationist from P.E.I., and Sen. Mike Duffy, also from P.E.I., called on the Trudeau government to do a full environmental assessment of what they have deemed to be a “dangerous” plan.

In the Red Chamber, Duffy called it “a looming environmental crisis in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.”

“If this scheme is allowed to proceed, it could damage the fishery in the three Maritime provinces, Quebec’s Magdalen Islands, and beyond,” he said, noting that thousands of tourists flock to the area every year.

“This is a project that pits jobs in the woods for those who cut and haul pulp — and who process the pulp at the paper plant — against the environment, tourism and the fishery.”

The senators have been watching developments closely, met with representatives of fisheries groups from all three Maritime provinces, and share the concerns of Pictou Landing First Nations Chief Andrea Paul.

Actress Ellen Page, who is from Halifax, has been a vocal opponent of the mill’s plan. She has said the provincial government must stop its “corporate welfare” for Northern Pulp, as it is “literally destroying the province.”

Last month on the “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” she made a plea for people to start taking environmental destruction more seriously.

“The people living and working in this community deserve a fair and impartial assessment. There’s a lot at stake,” Gunvaldsen Klaassen said.

“If the integrity of the process is compromised, however this plays out, there will be a lot of people who are unhappy if it’s perceived as unfair.”

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-With files from Michael Harris