Ontqario majors brace for tighter polution laws

In a bid to find more efficient ways to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions without increasing its operating costs, Toronto-based Inco Ltd. spent $105 million between 1980 and December 1986 on pollution abatement methods.

But as the Ontario Liberal government unveils its new get tough approach to air pollution, Inco and a number of major mining companies are bracing themselves for another spending spree.

In releasing some proposed changes to the air pollution act recently, the Ontario Environment Ministry has signalled its intentions to a mining community which has until next spring to come up with a reply.

While companies like Noranda Inc., Inco, Kidd Creek Mines and Falconbridge don’t know what new regulations will cost, mining representatives are currently sifting through the proposals to find out.

Contained in a 76-page green paper, the proposals look at ways to place tighter controls on the amount of pollutants entering the air around some of the province’s major industrial centres.

They are designed to close loopholes in the current laws by placing 10,000 of Ontario’s most hazardous air polluters under controls within five years after new regulations become law.

“I can’t remember a time when there was so much activity on the environment regulatory front,” said Charles Ferguson, director of environmental affairs at Inco. Emmission Reductions

“There is such an increase in the tempo of government regulations that it’s hard to keep up with all the changes that the province is seeking,” he said.

A 25-year veteran of the environment protection field, Ferguson is employed by Inco to find ways to reduce emissions that won’t increase operating costs at the company’s worldwide operations.

“Like other nickel producers, we have been in a survival mode for a number of years and we are hell bent on protecting the hard-won productivity gains achieved during that period,” he said.

The latest proposals come at a time when Ferguson is already involved in the Municipal Industrial Strategy for Abatement which the provincial government introduced last year to control the amount of toxins discharged into Ontario’s water supply.

As part of a program to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions at its Sudbury smelter to 265 kilotonnes annually by 1994, Inco must also produce a progress report by the end of 1988.

The 265-kilotonnne level represents a 77% reduction from a baseline agreed to in 1980 but Ferguson says he doesn’t yet know if the new paper will call for further reductions in sulphur dioxide emissions. Regulation 308

“This new paper seems to be much more detailed,” said Ferguson who sees it as an attempt to update pollution laws (Regulation 308) in effect since 1971. “Unlike misa which became almost a bible for water pollution control, it is truly a discussion document offering a range of alternatives for new air management tools.”

According to Ferguson, the government wants to introduce more systematic controls for substances discharged into the environment.

After taking a close look at the paper, the Ontario Mining Association’s environment committee is expected to send a submission to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment.