Mr. Speaker, I understand that the Department of Defence had applied to the Department of Environment asking to be exempt from an agreement that was negotiated, we believe very much on political terms earlier, that said any materials that contain PCBs more than 50 parts per million shall not be disposed of specifically in landfill sites. The PCBs as we know them contained in some of the materials and structures of the DEW line sites contain at least 45,000 parts per million. After the Department of Defence and the Department of Environment had forced and hardlined this need for a very stringent standard to be accepted by all provinces and territories, it found itself being lobbied by one of its own departments for exemption. Without speaking to the merits of it, that alone brought a lot of credibility problems to the way it was resolved, particularly because now we find that our scientific evidence that says in fact irregardless of the level PCBs contained in these materials, these materials are in fact locked into the paints and the materials that contain them. So for scientific purposes there is no merit in suggesting that they would be endangering the environment by being disposed of in landfill sites. But there seems to be a need at least to review these agreements that were made which we objected to at the time in order to deal adequately with the options that are available to us on how to clean up these military sites. Thank you.
Hon. Stephen Kakfwi on Question 492-13(4): Dew Line Site Clean-up
In the Legislative Assembly on May 29th, 1997. See this statement in context.
Further Return To Question 492-13(4): Dew Line Site Clean-up
Question 492-13(4): Dew Line Site Clean-up
Item 6: Oral Questions
May 28th, 1997
Page 1202
Stephen Kakfwi
See context to find out what was said next.