Inco ordered to do house cleaning

Nickel giant Inco (N-T) has been ordered by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) to clean up 25 homes polluted by the company’s old refinery in Port Colborne, Ont.

Inco’s vice-president of environmental and health sciences Bruce Conrad says the order is not a surprise and that his company’s voluntary cleanup plan already underway, “meets essentially almost all of this control order.”

The latest MOE order formalizes a draft order issued in October, which compelled Inco to clean up 25 properties in the town’s Rodney Street area. The province said the nickel levels in the properties’ soil are “unacceptable.”

In March, residents in the blue-collar neighbourhood launched a $750-million class action lawsuit against Inco, the Ontario government and others. The suit faces a certification hearing on June 3 to 7. In the end, it could up represent up to 25,000 people.

So far just five out of the 25 properties have been cleaned. The operation stalled after residents and Inco fell out over how the effort was being carried out. The residents are upset that the company is focussing on cleaning up yard soil and not the interior of the houses.

The new formalized order requires Inco to do some cleaning of the interiors of the homes, but Eric Gillespie, the lawyer representing the residents said the order does not address structural contamination. He says that dust right inside the structure of these homes, in the attics, in the wall cavities, under the floor, is highly contaminated.

Conrad said Inco is considering appealing portions of the order because it may require a larger cleanup, which the company feels is necessary. Likewise, Gillespie said the residents might appeal because they feel the cleanup standards aren’t tough enough.

A June 2000 study by the MOE sampled soils on 179 residential properties. Of those, 16 properties on Rodney, Mitchell and Davis Streets had surface soils with concentrations of nickel greater than 1%, whereas 10 properties had more than 0.1% lead in soils within 0.3 metre of the surface. The number of affected residences was later up to 25.

The average nickel content of 1,300 soil samples was 0.25%, about 40 times the typical concentration of nickel in Ontario soils. The province set a guideline of 0.02% nickel in soils in 1989, based on the metal’s toxicity to plants. Human-health effects would not show up at the guideline levels.

The MOE concluded that high nickel concentrations were “unquestionably related to Inco,” blaming emissions from vents, windows and doors of the plant, most of which would have taken place before the construction of a stack at the plant in 1929. Inco disputed the conclusion, arguing that the high concentrations of nickel could have resulted from importation of fill soils to the sites.

The study concluded that lead concentrations on the properties were not from the Inco plant (which had never refined lead or lead-bearing alloys) but came instead from “domestic residential lead sources.” It also found that concentrations of six other elements — copper, cobalt, cadmium, beryllium, arsenic and antimony — were not high enough to present any health threat.

Health Canada and the MOE are at odds over hazards faced by Port Colborne residents.

Health Canada says the province may be underestimating the risk of exposure to heavy metals such as nickel, arsenic and cadmium in the air and soil.

A review, written last September, says Ontario should use stricter international guidelines to assess exposure.

Regarding nickel exposure, federal scientists say that if standards proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) had been used, most age groups in Port Colborne would be exceeding the maximum recommended daily intake.

The province has decided to use a standard proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. However, Health Canada says the EPA standard does not take into account nickel’s potential cancer-causing properties when inhaled, whereas the WHO standard does.

A final risk assessment by the MOE is due out this spring.

The province intends to stand by the use of the U.S. standard and has called on an independent panel of environmental experts to back up its position.