In fall 2020, Damion, a Jamaican worker who picked tomatoes at a greenhouse in southern Ontario, broke out in an itchy rash. Then his skin peeled off.

He was working for Lakeside Produce, which grows vegetables in the farming town of Leamington, Ont. The company is owned by Chris Cervini, who took it over from his father. Lakeside also runs greenhouses in Michigan and Texas, and is expanding into North Carolina.

That fall, Lakeside had dusted the inside of two greenhouses with a thick layer of hydrated lime powder, which is used to suppress the growth of bacteria. Workers say the powder filled the air, burning their eyes, lungs and skin. It contaminated their food in the lunchroom. They couldn’t escape it.

Damion, who didn’t want his last name published, said the chemical lightened his skin. Another worker saw Damion’s skin peel off “like when a lizard is changing its skin.” Damion went to a doctor and received pills to stop the itching. 

Sudeshna Nambiar, Lakeside’s chief operating officer, told The Narwhal in a letter that dolomitic hydrated lime has been used “for generations” in agriculture to “control PH levels,” and that it was misused “for a very brief period due to new management.” She said the company removed the powder within 24 hours.  

But multiple current or former Lakeside workers told The Narwhal that the powder was only removed after they went on strike, a drastic action caused by general mistreatment by their employer during the pandemic, with the chemical and its effects being the final straw. Nambiar denies that a “work stoppage” took place. 

Photos from workers show warning labels on bags of Dolomitic Hydrated Lime that read: “Danger: causes serious eye damage. Causes skin irritation. May cause cancer if inhaled. May cause respiratory irritation. Causes damage to organs through prolonged or repeated exposure.” The labels state that those exposed to the chemical should wear gloves and eye or face protection, but a worker said Lakeside only gave them a thin disposable mask and told them to wash and wear it again. The company did not respond when asked if these allegations were true.

Greenhouses like Lakeside’s are huge agricultural operations that rely on migrant workers to produce vegetables that are sometimes eaten by Canadians, but largely headed for export. People like Damion keep the food supply flowing, brought here on visas that are tied to specific employers, which creates a constant fear of being sent home for complaining. Because of this, migrant farmworkers often endure dangerous conditions, with poor access to healthcare and little government oversight. And when COVID-19 brought sickness, panic and lockdowns, a bad situation only became worse.

While private companies don’t have legal authority to order workers to quarantine, some migrant workers who spoke to The Narwhal alleged that they were singled out at Ontario farms and ordered to observe lockdowns that did not apply to Canadian workers. The federal government, through Employment and Social Development Canada, is responsible for inspecting housing and quarantine accommodations, but through spring and summer 2020, inspectors failed to visit in person, relying largely on photos sent by employers.

Last year, 2,089 migrant farmworkers in Ontario caught COVID-19 and three died. As of October, 1,102 more have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in 2021, and five have died. Between March 2020 and August 2021, Ontario’s agricultural sector was the subject of 183 COVID-19-related complaints (for example, employers not providing PPE) to the province’s Labour Ministry, although it’s important to note that the data isn’t perfect, since some workplaces are counted twice, under different names. 

Just one Ontario farm is facing COVID-19-related labour charges. As The Toronto Star reported in September, Scotlynn Growers in Norfolk County is facing 20 charges, including a failure to isolate workers with symptoms and a failure to follow masking and other safety protocols. About 200 Scotlynn workers contracted the virus, and one, 55-year-old Jan Lopez Chaparro, died.

Though COVID-19 numbers on farms are down from last year and vaccines are available — as of October 2021, 84 per cent of migrant farmworkers had received one dose and 76 per cent had received two — ongoing concerns about labour rights, systemic racism and Canada’s immigration system remain.

In early December, the federal auditor general released a report examining how well Employment and Social Development Canada had protected seasonal agricultural workers’ health and safety during the pandemic, with a focus on adequate quarantine accommodations.

In 57 grim pages, it details how inadequate inspections and bureaucratic backlog resulted in magnifying workers’ already considerable vulnerability. “In total, we found problems in about 73 per cent of the quarantine inspections we reviewed,” it states, detailing problems such as delayed follow-up after outbreaks, inadequate effort put into speaking with workers directly, and a lack of evidence to justify some employers being found compliant with COVID protection requirements.

And although the federal government made a mid-2020 commitment of $16.2 million towards agricultural inspections, the quality of inspections in 2021 was actually worse than when COVID-19 first landed in 2020.

What happened to migrant workers when COVID-19 arrived in Ontario

“That’s why I tell you they care about their plants and not us,” says former Lakeside Produce employee Shawn Cotter, a 28-year-old from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia.

In 2017, Cotter arrived in Ontario under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, which grants visas based on temporary contracts with a certain employer. As with the other Caribbean workers, if Cotter had a problem with Lakeside, he couldn’t look for a job at a different company. If he complained, the company could easily send him home. “It’s like you’re in prison,” he says. He worked on temporary contracts for months or years at a time. The year that the pandemic started, he was sharing a bunkhouse — migrant worker housing provided by employers — with 23 other people.

In March 2020, as COVID-19 began to spread, the Canadian government asked anyone entering the country to isolate for 14 days. As hundreds of workers arrived in Canada from abroad, Lakeside struggled to find space for them to isolate. According to federal inspection reports obtained through a freedom of information request and confirmed by a video that The Narwhal saw on social media, the company converted a warehouse into quarantine accommodations: workers slept on thin mattresses atop wooden palettes and there were no barriers between the beds.

Nambiar said Lakeside advised workers to remain in their bunkhouses “to help curb the potential spread of COVID-19 and obey government guidelines.” She also wrote that Lakeside tried to make this easier by arranging grocery deliveries and on-site money transfer services for those who wanted to send money home. Despite these precautions, COVID-19 struck Lakeside workers in May 2020.

Isolation and fear of illness were already wearing on workers when Lakeside began using the harsh lime powder. In late August, someone anonymously complained to the Ministry of Labour about the powder Lakeside used on its vegetables, the same chemical Damion blames for his rashes and peeling skin. Workers had hit a breaking point.

One late September morning, workers walked out of their bunkhouses and across the parking lot to the front door of the greenhouse. But unlike every other day, they refused to go in, until management removed the powder. Cotter, who had never gone on strike before, estimates 60 workers from Jamaica, St. Lucia, Guatemala and Mexico took part. While he didn’t personally suffer side effects from the powder, he was frustrated with how the company had treated him during the pandemic and he wanted to support his fellow workers. 

“I wasn’t afraid, I had the power in me — yes, yes, yes, strike, strike, strike!” he says.

Cotter says work stoppage lasted two hours, concluding when farm owner Chris Cervini arrived and agreed to remove the chemical. But Cotter says that while the company did sweep the powder up and powerwash the greenhouses, it began using the same chemical from a different bag only months later. Ontario workers are legally allowed to refuse work if they feel they’re in danger, but Cotter says they were afraid to walk off the job again, as there are no job protections for migrant farmworkers who want to collectively bargain.

Ministry of Labour reports also include complaints about the lime powder, and what inspectors found when they finally visited Lakeside: although the ministry received an anonymous complaint about chemicals in late August, there is no record of inspectors visiting the farm until December.

“Some workers got sick with different rashes and needed to visit the doctor,” the report reads, detailing complaints. “Workers experienced discriminations of all forms and an unhealthy work environment and [are] afraid to speak out because of losing their jobs like many others who did get fired.”

Lakeside, for its part, framed what Cotter called a strike as a “group meeting” and told the ministry that “no work refusal had taken place.” The ministry issued one requirement, asking the company to hand over documents related to chemicals it used. There are also records of another Labour Ministry inspection in February 2021, after another complaint about the use of lime powder.

Cotter suspects that some workers didn’t have their contracts renewed because of the strike. Another worker who spoke to The Narwhal over WhatsApp from St. Lucia believes that’s why he personally wasn’t brought back this year.  

When asked if workers were punished for speaking out, Lakeside didn’t answer the question.

Most of Canada’s produce is exported. Then, we import what we eat

The farming town of Leamington is a handful of city blocks at the nexus of long stretches of highway that branch out across flat, green fields. The Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation say they ceded this as part of a total of three million acres of land between Lakes Huron, Ontario and Erie to the Crown in 1784, in exchange for trade goods worth  £1,180 at the time (about $300,000 today) in the Between the Lakes Treaty. Today, the land is filled with corn fields, vineyards and orchards of peaches and apples.

Tall wind turbines pierce the horizon and 18-wheel trucks hum down the highways past hundreds of reflective, mirror-like greenhouses containing rows of leafy plants. It would take a worker an entire 15-minute break to walk the length of a greenhouse and back.

Next to the greenhouses sit bunkhouses that appear tiny in comparison. Each sleeps dozens of workers from Latin American and Caribbean nations. These are the people who grow, pick and package the massive volumes of produce that Canadians and Americans buy at grocery stores.

“We have a highly concentrated system of profits and corporate control, so whether it’s migrant workers or farmers or consumers, we are cogs in the wheel,” she says. “And it’s not a kind system. It is all geared toward profit.”

The majority of fruits and vegetables found in Toronto grocery stores are picked in countries like the U.S. and Mexico, transported through an opaque supply chain, and labelled unclearly. (The U.S. also employs migrant workers under a similar system of precarious visas and undocumented labour.) When Toronto shoppers find local produce at chain grocery stores, it is often from greenhouses in southern Ontario the size of Amazon warehouses, including Lakeside.

Freshco in downtown Toronto, for example, stocks tomatoes from Lakeside Produce, according to former Lakeside workers who identified the company’s logo on boxes in the store. There’s no way for grocery shoppers to know that these tomatoes were picked by workers who experienced COVID outbreaks, and who risked their precarious contracts to go on strike against the company’s use of lime powder. (Freshco’s parent company, Sobeys, did not respond to requests for comment.)

Costco in Michigan carries mushrooms from Ontario-based Highline Produce, which calls itself the largest mushroom grower in Canada. Again, fungi fans have no easy way to connect their groceries to Highline workers who experienced multiple COVID-19 outbreaks and complained to the Ministry of Labour about unsanitary conditions, lack of distancing and PPE, and employees coming into work sick. (Costco did not respond to requests for comment.)

One Highline worker tells The Narwhal that he contracted COVID-19 in cramped employer-provided housing, and that in June 2020 he and his coworkers didn’t disclose their symptoms because they needed money to send home to their families. “The farm never offered us money to stay home if we felt sick,” he said. 

Highline CEO and President Aaron Hamer says the company told workers early in the pandemic to stay home if they felt sick, and that disciplinary letters were sent to workers who came to work with symptoms or didn’t wear masks. Highline doesn’t have paid sick leave, but the company helps COVID-positive workers to apply for compensation through the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. They are also assisted in applying for federal payments — currently, the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit, which replaced the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) — if they test negative, but need to quarantine after exposure. 

“Are there things from time to time with 2,300 workers that don’t go perfect, of course,” Hamer tells The Narwhal. “If we find them, do we fix them? Absolutely.” 

Hamer says Highline spent “an incredible amount of money” to prevent the spread of COVID-19, including educating workers about how to protect themselves, initiating a mask policy before the government mandate, building outdoor tents for workers to distance at lunch and setting up an “ethics hotline” for reporting unsafe, discriminatory or illegal behaviour. He says the farm was inspected by the Ministry of the Labour and there were no orders issued for not following COVID-19 procedures. 

Even as they market produce as “family grown” or “local,” farms in Ontario are highly reliant on migrant workers: in 2020, it was the province with the most foreign workers employed on farms, followed by Quebec and B.C. Between 50,000 and 60,000 agricultural workers come to Canada each year, usually through the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program. The program started in the 1960s when Canadian farms were unable to find local workers willing to do manual labour for low pay. The first workers were from Jamaica, and the program later expanded to include Mexico and other Caribbean nations.

At the same time, globalized trade and natural disasters put pressure on people in countries like St. Lucia to leave their homes to make a living. Cotter’s father was a banana farmer, a legacy he hoped to continue before the island’s agricultural industry deflated. St. Lucia’s banana industry thrived from the 1960s to the 1990s thanks to a preferential trade deal with the United Kingdom, before European Union partners complained and the U.K. changed the agreement, ending Caribbean dominance. 

Climate change is contributing to more frequent and fierce storms in the Caribbean and a 2010 hurricane dealt another blow to banana crops. Younger generations from farming families don’t have the same options for stable employment. 

Canada’s visas for seasonal farm workers offer them the chance to support their families, if they are willing to live away from their loved ones for long chunks of time.

Inside the bunkhouses and government inspections

A 10-minute drive north of Leamington is a new, gargantuan greenhouse with the word “Lakeside” above the front door. There’s also a row of recently constructed bunkhouses with bike racks in front. With few transportation options to get to grocery stores and banks in downtown Leamington, workers bike there on gravel highway shoulders, as tractor trailers roar by.

Although the Lakeside bunkhouses are fairly new, the company still chose a design that packs workers in cramped conditions, as is tradition for farms in this region. A total of 144 workers live here, with 24 workers in each unit. This is where Cotter used to live, and where he participated in the strike.

Bunkhouse conditions are not consistent across the country; provinces set housing standards, and in some cases they pass that duty along to municipalities. Stepping inside one of the Lakeside bunkhouses, The Narwhal found it was impossible for workers to maintain distance; there was virtually no private space available. 

“Lakeside Produce is very proud to say that our bunkhouses go above and beyond the requirements of the Public Health Unit, Fire Department and other municipality guidelines. We also comply with Service Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada department,” wrote Nambiar, Lakeside’s chief operating officer, in her letter.

On Sundays, the Caribbean men in the bunkhouse have the day off. During The Narwhal’s morning visit, most are relaxing in their beds after a long week. Each dorm has eight beds. Blankets hang from the bunks in an attempt to gain privacy. In one dorm, reggae plays quietly from a top bunk. A man snores softly. Another man chats on the phone. The space is crowded but clean; it smells of laundry detergent and baby powder. Luggage lines the floor by the walls.

In the kitchen, pots and pans clink together and the scent of sweet spices fills the air. A man who prefers not to be named is cooking his mother’s jerk chicken on one of 10 burners. He used to be a chef at a restaurant in Jamaica. 

Oil sizzles as he sautées onions and red and yellow peppers. Workers keep their groceries in lockers, freezers and a walk-in fridge. The cook says that when he buys peppers, he thinks about the chemicals that are probably sprayed on them, likely the chemicals he has experienced first hand.

Workers eat at four communal tables. There are no couches or soft chairs. Two dozen people share a small bathroom with three toilet stalls and four shower stalls. Workers say this bunkhouse did not have a COVID-19 outbreak, but other Lakeside bunkhouses did.

Responsibility for ensuring migrant farm workers are being treated and housed decently is divided among government departments and agencies at the federal, provincial and municipal level. At the federal level, Employment and Social Development Canada is the agency tasked with ensuring employers comply with rules for migrant worker housing by inspecting bunkhouses. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada oversees the visa process for the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program: in 2019, it created an open work permit that allows migrant workers who can prove their current employer is abusive to find a different employer.

Provincial ministries of labour are responsible for enforcing health and safety laws, investigating complaints and initiating workplace inspections. If a worker thinks their employer violated provincial laws, they can take their case to the labour relations board in hopes of a settlement. Since the pandemic began, the Ontario Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs has committed $36 million to bolster the sector’s enforcement of worker health and safety. 

These were the checks and balances in place when COVID-19 tore through Ontario farms and bunkhouses. 

But in spring 2020, Employment Canada halted in-person inspections, instead asking employers to send photos to prove they were following the rules—a practice the auditor general’s office specifically criticized as inadequate in its December report.

Through a freedom of information request, The Narwhal obtained federal Employment Canada inspection reports of quarantine accommodations for migrant workers employed at a dozen Ontario companies, including Lakeside, during the early months of the pandemic, from March to July 2020. 

The reports included photos of quarantine accommodations that show cramped conditions, with several bunk beds to a room and shared bathrooms and kitchens. One report includes an April 2020 photo showing two migrant workers inside a southern Ontario bunkhouse holding a measuring tape between them, as proof they were staying the government-mandated two metres apart. 

The department told The Narwhal virtual inspections were meant to protect workers, employers and investigators. Reports show that every Ontario farm inspected by Employment Canada from March to July 2020 was found in compliance with the Quarantine and Emergencies Act, as well as COVID-19 provincial law governing public health and migrant worker quarantine accommodations. 

Employment Canada also posts a list of non-compliant employers across the country on its website. From February 18, 2020, to July 28, 2020, not one business in all of Canada — from farms to restaurants to construction companies — is noted as having violated any of the department’s regulations about treatment of temporary foreign workers.

That includes Lakeside Produce, which passed an inspection that happened in May 2020, after an outbreak. Employment Canada did a virtual review of Lakeside’s quarantine accommodations using photos of workers in a warehouse, on thin mattresses on wooden pallets, no barriers between them. Inspectors did not interview any workers.

The Narwhal asked Employment Canada about the Lakeside warehouse and why the government considered measuring tape a good method for assessing whether workers were safe from COVID-19 indoors. The department replied via email that it doesn’t disclose information about its compliance activities. It also noted that it restarted in-person inspections of migrant worker accommodations in late summer 2020, and is working on strengthening its inspections and tip line for worker complaints. 

When The Narwhal posed similar questions about inspections to Immigration Canada, a ministry spokesperson responded by email that “there are stiff penalties for employers who do not comply,” adding that non-compliant employers can be banned from the seasonal workers program, or face up to $1 million in fines.

As early as spring 2020, scientific evidence suggested COVID-19 could spread through the air, especially indoors. Employment Canada inspection reports don’t mention ventilation, and the department told The Narwhal that ventilation is a provincial matter. In June 2021, after the sixth recorded COVID-19 death of a migrant farmworker in Ontario, the provincial Ministry of Labour told the Toronto Star it was updating its guide for on-farm outbreak management to include ventilation. But the guide from September 2020 is still the only one on the ministry’s site, and doesn’t mention ventilation. The Narwhal asked the provincial ministry if it had updated its guide to include ventilation and didn’t receive an answer.

The Narwhal examined worker complaints to the Ministry of Labour and found that, after the May 2020 outbreak, workers said Lakeside wasn’t following pandemic protocols. The Narwhal also obtained ministry inspection reports detailing worker complaints about the lime powder, and what inspectors found when they finally visited.

Another field report states that inspectors returned to Lakeside, which is also called Cervini Farms, in February 2021, in response to another complaint about exposure to lime powder, which former Lakeside worker Cotter told The Narwhal was put back into use not long after the brief strike. 

“The dust is all over the workplace and close to food quarters. Workers have reported burning eyes, sore throats, skin rashes and chest pain,” the report reads, describing the complaint. Company representatives told inspectors the powder had been discontinued and cleaned up weeks earlier, that workers were provided eye, skin and respiratory protection, and that Lakeside was not aware of any worker injuries or complications from the lime powder.

Inspectors didn’t see any lime powder, but the report notes that they did see workers without masks, and found that although health and safety meetings are mandated every three months, Lakeside hadn’t held one in the six months prior.

That time, the ministry issued three orders to Lakeside: take precautions to protect workers from COVID-19; hold health and safety meetings every three months; and send the ministry the names of the workers who handled the lime powder. Nambiar said Service Canada, the Ministry of Labour and public health all investigated the company’s use of lime and found the farm had taken proper steps to correct its mistake.

The Narwhal asked the provincial Labour Ministry what steps were taken to investigate and enforce these orders at Lakeside, and did not receive an answer. “In 2020, 98 per cent of farms reported no cases of COVID after a proactive inspection, demonstrating the ministry’s approach to enforcement on farms is working,” a Ministry of Labour spokesperson emailed. When asked about worker reports of illegal lockdowns, Ontario’s Labour Ministry said such complaints are forwarded to local police or Employment Canada.

‘Product of Canada’: marketing obscures Ontario’s reliance on migrant workers

“It’s horrendous, horrific, and shows the stark concern that we’ve been raising for two decades with regard to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program and migrant farmworkers’ living and working conditions here in Canada,” says Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with Justicia For Migrant Workers, about federal and provincial oversight of workers during COVID-19. 

He shares a video he made while grocery shopping, showing bags of apples and carrots marked “Product of Canada” decorated with photos of white male farmers. “Three generations of Canadian farmers but no migrant workers,” says Ramsaroop about these marketing images. “At the same time we see the myth of the family farm, we see the erasure of the racialized labour that goes into the production of our food system.” 

Ramsaroop called it “inexcusable” for Lakeside to provide such miserable accommodations. “These companies are highly resourced and wealthy,” he says. He believes the focus on exports is a prime cause because farms want their price points to compete internationally.

Ramsaroop is not surprised to hear that farms passed federal inspection without in-person visits. Even when federal inspectors do interview workers, he says, their bosses are often within earshot, so workers feel pressure to say everything is fine. He called both governments “negligent” in their responsibilities to migrant workers.

“There is an absence of any form of transparency, accountability or oversight of the [seasonal workers] program,” he says. This dates back to Canada’s beginnings and colonization: Ramsaroop sees the structural power imbalance coded into the seasonal worker program as a continuation of the indentured labour system that flourished after the end of slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean.

He adds that this doesn’t mean that people like Cotter should not come to Canada to work — but that when they do come, they should have full protections under the law like everyone else. 

Advocacy groups have been saying for decades that Canada should give migrant workers permanent residency on arrival so they can stand up for their rights and access healthcare. The Narwhal asked Immigration Canada if it had considered taking this step, but the department instead pointed to various pathways to permanent residency, all of which can take years. 

Immigration Canada did recently update the rules for obtaining open permits to include abuse related to COVID-19. And, along with Employment Canada, the department is currently proposing changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, which includes seasonal agricultural workers and others, such as domestic caregivers, who also come on temporary visas tied to their employers. These changes include informing workers of their employment rights and including employer reprisal — or punishing workers for exercising their rights — in the definition of abuse. It all sounds promising, but as noted in the auditor general’s recent report, Employment Canada hasn’t lived up to its “repeated commitments over the years to improve workers’ living conditions,” which doesn’t bode well for the department’s future commitment to new, COVID era responsibilities.

In the 2021 budget, the Canadian government committed $110 million to increase workplace inspections, support migrant worker services and “improve open work permits.” It also said it is working to improve co-ordination between federal and provincial agencies responding to COVID-19 outbreaks in workplaces with migrant workers.

In May 2021, Cotter obtained an open permit and left Lakeside. Ramsaroop says this isn’t a permanent solution: open permits allow workers to stay in Canada for only one year, but by the end of this time they must find a new employer to be attached to their visa.

But Cotter is optimistic. “I feel free now, the breeze can blow me anywhere, I will be fine,” he says. He says the treatment he endured from his employer opened him up instead of shutting him down. “Through the pandemic, I know a lot of my rights now — it’s like a blessing.”

Updated Jan. 6, 2022, at 1:43 a.m. ET: This article was updated to correct a line that misidentified a substance that was improperly used in two greenhouses. The article quoted a company official who explained how dolomitic hydrated lime powder was used incorrectly for a very brief period. The article also quoted workers who said they suffered adverse health effects after the powder was used. The article incorrectly referred to this substance as limestone powder. Bags of limestone powder were photographed by workers, but it was rather the spread of dolomitic hydrated lime (also photographed, and published in this story) that workers said led to a burning sensation in their eyes, lungs and skin. Limestone powder, or calcium carbonate, is largely benign though can have adverse health effects after long-term exposure, but hydrated lime, or calcium hydroxide, is caustic.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

In the narrows between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron sits a twin pipeline pumping 540,000 barrels per day of natural gas liquids and crude oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan through Michigan to Sarnia, Ont. For more than 65 years, the pair of 6.5-kilometre pipelines has rested exposed in the Straits of Mackinac, moving oil near delicate wetlands and through fish spawning habitats where swift currents pull water between the Great Lakes. 

A decade ago, Michigan scientists, conservationists and tribes began warning that Enbridge’s Line 5 was a disaster waiting to happen. Now a renewed dispute over the pipeline is exposing how reliant both sides of the Canada-U.S. border are on the movement of fossil fuels through aging pipes.

There are many ways the lines could burst, according to Dave Schwab, a researcher at the University of Michigan’s Water Center. The most likely scenario, he said, is that a ship’s anchor could strike a pipe. Lighter than water, the oil would rush to the surface and spread, riding the currents.

“Where the oil would end up is a crapshoot,” Schwab said. 

In 2016, he simulated 840 possible spills in various currents and conditions and found that more than 1,100 kilometres of shoreline in lakes Michigan and Huron were vulnerable to an oil spill, with American shoreline and islands at highest risk. Schwab’s simulations showed oil could reach Canadian shores, too, including Ontario’s Manitoulin Island and Bruce Peninsula. He warned the scale of a Line 5 leak could match the devastating 2010 Kalamazoo River spill, also from an Enbridge pipeline in Michigan, that cost more than US$1 billion to clean up. 

In 2016, Dave Schwab, a researcher at the University of Michigan’s Water Center, simulated 840 possible spills from Line 5 near the Straits of Mackinac. This map shows the percentage of cases in which oil is present at any time after initial release. Source: Michigan Water Center. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

After Schwab completed his report, a ship dragged an anchor across the pipelines; it didn’t break them but did scrape away coating that prevents corrosion. “We got lucky, very lucky,” he said.

Schwab said there’s only one way to get the likelihood of a spill to zero: “Turn off the pipeline.”

And that’s exactly what some people want to do. 

Elected on a promise to shut down Line 5 once and for all, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is seeking a legal order to halt the flow of oil through the pipeline, calling it an “unreasonable risk” to the Great Lakes. The order’s original deadline of May 12 has long since passed with no resolution in sight.

Enbridge has refused to shut down the line and is fighting back in court. In response to safety concerns, the company wants to build a tunnel below the straits to house Line 5, but permits are pending and the project would take years to build, while the pipeline continues to threaten the Great Lakes.

Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer campaigned on a promise to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline. Photo: Junfu Han / Detroit Free Press/TNS/ABACAPRESS.COM

Meanwhile, Canadian politicians are busy making contingency plans and backchanneling with American leaders; on March 3, Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan called U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and framed the Line 5 issue as a potential energy crisis. “There is a lot at stake for our provinces, there is a lot at stake nationally, and therefore the federal government is watching this like a hawk,” O’Regan said in a recent committee meeting. 

Experts echo his concerns, saying if Line 5 shuts down, residents and corporations in Ontario and Quebec will face higher prices for gasoline, home heating and jet fuel as the crude and natural gas liquids will likely need to move by truck and rail with higher transportation costs. Ontario Minister of Energy, Northern Development and Mines Greg Rickford said it would put thousands of jobs at risk and increase Ontario’s reliance on fuel transport by rail, truck and sea. 

The question of a shutdown hinges on a U.S. court decision that Michigan hopes will reaffirm its cancellation of the pipeline’s easement through the straits, although Canadian politicians hope it may yet be decided through international diplomacy or the invocation of a little-known treaty. Meanwhile, Indigenous nations on both sides of the border are watching closely, ready to protect their rights with litigation if necessary. 

Every day, Line 5 moves 540,000 barrels of natural gas liquids and crude oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan through Michigan to Sarnia, Ont. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

Line 5 has shown signs of disrepair and danger for decades

Michigan first granted Line 5’s easement through the straits in 1953. After construction, the pipeline rested on the lakebed largely unnoticed by the public until 2010, when two massive oil spills hit headlines. In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, the result of an underwater well blowout that caused the largest marine oil spill in history. Three months later, Enbridge Line 6B, part of the same Lakehead System as Line 5, burst, releasing more than three million litres of diluted bitumen from Canada’s oilsands into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. It was the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.

The Kalamazoo spill pulled public focus like a magnet to Enbridge pipelines in Michigan, and environmental groups including the National Wildlife Federation began investigating Line 5. “After that spill, we started asking a lot of questions,” said Beth Wallace, manager of conservation partnerships for the federation and the lead staffer on Line 5. “Because really it was out of sight, out of mind.”

A worker monitors the water in Talmadge Creek as diluted bitumen from the ruptured Enbridge Line 6B is vacuumed out after the devastating 2010 spill. Photo: Paul Sancya / Associated Press

The federation requested information from state and federal agencies and Enbridge, dug through news archives and filed freedom of information requests, but couldn’t get answers to simple questions, including how often Line 5 was inspected, or if there had been spills or repairs. So, in 2013, they commissioned divers to record video of the pipeline’s condition. 

State rules say the pipe must be anchored every 75 feet (about 23 metres) to prevent stress, but the video revealed that huge spans were unsupported — something that had been a problem for more than a decade. An internal 2003 Enbridge report found stretches as long as 286 feet (about 87 metres) were unsupported — a finding that the company only made public in 2016 as a requirement of its Kalamazoo spill settlement. 

Without supports, Wallace said the strong currents could bend the pipe over time, leading to a potential spill. The video also revealed sections of the pipeline were covered in invasive mussels that can release acid and corrode the pipe’s surface.

The National Wildlife Federation commissioned divers to examine the state of the Line 5 pipeline in 2013. Video: National Wildlife Federation

In 2014, prompted by the federation’s findings and public fears following the Kalamazoo spill, then-governor Rick Snyder launched a task force to examine Line 5. In 2017, Michigan’s Pipeline Safety Advisory Board began looking at alternatives for Line 5’s path through the straits.

In 2017, the release of records increased public concern: the National Wildlife Federation published data from inspection records obtained through a freedom of information request that showed land-based sections of Line 5 had leaked 29 times since 1968, spilling more than one million gallons of oil. The records showed construction issues and manufacturing defects in the pipe. That same year, Enbridge pressure tested the line and declared it was “in excellent health and fit for service.” The company also added support anchors, assuring the public they weren’t more than 75 feet apart.

In late 2018, voters elected Whitmer and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel after the duo vowed to begin the legal process to shut down Line 5. In June 2019, Nessel and Whitmer followed through on that promise, filing the first of a series of legal actions aimed at decommissioning the pipeline.

Enbridge maintains the line is safe and there has been no oil spill in the straits in Line 5’s history. The company told The Narwhal it monitors its pipelines closely and takes safety seriously. Enbridge said it has tested a full-scale emergency response and would cover all costs if a spill happens, which is required under U.S. and Canadian regulations.

Les Scott, former senior community advisor for Enbridge walks through an oil pipe storage facility just west of Morden, Man., during a tour of locations for the Line 3 pipeline, a part of the company’s Lakehead System. Photo: John Woods / The Canadian Press

But recent incidents raise doubts about Line 5’s safety; in spring 2020, Enbridge inspected the pipeline and found that sometime in 2019 another ship had marred the pipeline by dragging a cable across it, removing protective coating and damaging an anchor support. Of the five vessels that potentially caused the damage, four of them were contracted by Enbridge, the company’s report found. 

And in June 2020, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency fined Enbridge US$6.7 million for failure to repair dents and cracking in its larger Lakehead System. As part of a consent decree Enbridge had signed after the Kalamazoo spill, the company had promised to quickly repair problems in the Lakehead System but had neglected to do so.

In November 2020, Michigan cancelled the 1953 easement for Line 5, citing a review by the state’s Department of Natural Resources that found Enbridge had repeatedly violated terms of the easement.

In February, Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy approved permits for the company to build a tunnel under the straits, however the company still needs permits from the Michigan Public Service Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Snyder agreed in 2018 to let Enbridge dig a tunnel under the straits to house the pipeline, rather than leaving it exposed on the lakebed. 

Line 5 closure would have ‘monumental’ impact on industry and consumers

In response to Michigan’s legal action, politicians on both sides of the border have pressured Whitmer and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to keep the line open, warning of disastrous energy shortages, a spike in fuel prices and job losses. 

In a November radio interview, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said a shutdown would be “devastating” for companies and consumers on both sides of the border. Citing the example of an ethylene pipeline shutdown that caused job losses in the 1990s, Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley and union leaders in the city have said refineries in the city could close, prompting layoffs. 

On March 3, after Conservative MPs questioned Trudeau about Line 5, O’Regan raised the issue during a call with U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. During a meeting of the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship Between Canada and the U.S. on March 4, he said he framed the Line 5 issue as a matter of energy security and discussed the two countries’ shared climate goals. He said Granholm, a former governor of Michigan, understands how critical Line 5 is to the state and the U.S. O’Regan added the Canadian government had raised the issue directly with U.S. President Joe Biden. 

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, left, is one of many politicians who say shutting down Line 5 would create an energy crisis and the federal government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, right, should take decisive action. Photo: Justin Trudeau / Flickr

If Whitmer succeeds, Ontario and Quebec face the real possibility of an energy crisis, according to Aaron Henry, senior director of natural resources for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. “This will change the face of Canada’s energy security,” he said in an interview with The Narwhal.

The pipeline is responsible for the fuel that supplies consumers with gas for home heating, gasoline for cars, and jet fuel for at least three major airports in Ontario and Quebec, he explained. “It’s not the case that Line 5 goes offline and all this demand disappears,” he said. 

If Line 5 closes, refineries would have to find new supply chains, like moving fuel by rail and truck. The cost of moving that crude would double by rail and quadruple by truck, he said, and refineries would pass that cost along to businesses and consumers in Ontario and Quebec. He agreed with Bradley that layoffs are likely in Sarnia as major refineries scramble to establish new ways to move fuel. 

“It’s monumental. It’s a really big impact,” Henry said. “You are looking to pay more to pump the gas in your car, airlines will be looking at higher costs for their jet fuel, and you’re looking at more costs for natural gas to turn on the stove or heat your house.” 

But Wallace and others say there are alternatives to Line 5 that can keep the fuels flowing. 

One potential alternative raised by Wallace and tribal chairman Mike Wiggins of Wisconsin’s Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is for Enbridge to divert crude south through recently expanded Line 61 and then north through another line to Sarnia. 

According to a 2018 report by the Groundwork Center, a Michigan environmental non-profit, Line 61 doesn’t connect directly to Michigan’s Line 78, which connects to Sarnia, however, “the potential exists to make the connection” to refineries in Canada. 

Enbridge said its pipelines can’t make that connection: “There are no pipelines or other alternatives that can readily substitute for Line 5 in transporting the crude oil and natural gas liquids to the refineries and other facilities served by Line 5,” Enbridge spokesperson Tracie Kenyon said in an email.

However, Wallace said other pipeline companies may be able to transport the fuel. “There is a really robust network of pipelines all throughout our region,” she said, adding that the energy system is always changing and the fuel will find its way to market without Line 5.

Canada invokes pipelines treaty 

Right now, the matter of a Line 5 shutdown is in U.S. federal court. When Michigan revoked Enbridge’s easement through the straits, it also asked a state court to affirm its cancellation of the permit. In response, Enbridge removed the matter to federal court — a move any party can take if they believe the case belongs in a different jurisdiction. Next, it’s up to a federal judge to decide whether the case belongs in federal court or if it should be sent back to state court. The federal judge asked for mediation in the case, but that process failed to resolve the dispute. On Sept. 15, Michigan filed in court to call off the mediation, calling it “unproductive.”

Enbridge argues that its regulator is the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, so the case belongs in federal court. However, Salim believes Michigan is right to argue state court is the correct jurisdiction because the issue is not about regulation but instead about the location of the line, which gives the state authority over the easement. He said the state’s revocation of the easement, effective May 12, is valid on its own without the court decision. “If Enbridge continues to operate after the deadline, Enbridge is in violation of state law,” Salim said.

Meanwhile, Canadian politicians are under pressure to take action on a pipeline outside of their borders. On Oct. 4, the federal government invoked the Transit Pipelines Treaty, which had never been used before. The treaty, signed by the U.S. and Canada in 1977, guarantees that pipelines can move fuels between the two countries.

If Line 5 shuts down, Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley and union leaders say refineries in the city, shown here, could close, prompting layoffs. Photo: Garth Lenz

In a statement explaining the decision, Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau said Canada is “firmly committed to ensuring its energy and economic security while protecting the environment for future generations.”

“In response to Michigan’s efforts to shut down Line 5, Canada has raised its significance for Canadian economic and energy security at the highest levels of the U.S. federal government,” the statement said.

In March, Henry said invoking the treaty would be “a pretty significant button to press” that would heat up relations. “I don’t think that’s the pathway we would necessarily want to go down,” he said.

Margrethe Kearney, senior attorney with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, an advocacy organization based in the U.S. Midwest, said the Transit Pipelines Treaty allows for states and provinces to shut down pipelines, and she believes Michigan is operating within its jurisdiction under the treaty. Invoking it triggers negotiations, and if the parties can’t agree, the issue could go to arbitration. She said the litigation between Enbridge and Michigan could continue concurrently.

Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan, left, says there’s a lot at stake with Line 5 and the federal government is watching the issue “like the hawk.” Photo: Justin Trudeau / Flickr

Kearney added that Michigan commissioned a task force into propane disruption and found a Line 5 shutdown would have limited impacts on propane transportation within the state. She suggested Canada launch its own study into the impacts of a shut down.

During the March 4 committee meeting, O’Regan said he wouldn’t give away Canada’s legal strategy and was wary of negotiating in public, but said “we are looking at every option.”

“We are watching it almost on a minute by minute basis and we will be absolutely prepared and ready to intervene at exactly the precise moment,” O’Regan told the committee. 

Long list of Indigenous nations want Line 5 shut down

Josephine Mandamin, a member of Wikwemikong First Nation on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, walked around every Great Lake before she passed away in 2019 at age 77, travelling more than 17,000 kilometres to raise awareness about water protection. It was Mandamin’s water walks that inspired Wikwemikong Chief Duke Peltier to protect his community’s water.

“We get asked when we cross over back into the spirit world: what did we do in our lives to live in harmony and balance? It’s up to everyone that could be impacted by this pipeline to, at the very least, be aware of it, and be an advocate for protecting that water source.”

Peltier said his nation never consented to Line 5’s construction and he’s deeply concerned that an oil spill could “wreak havoc” on his nation’s traditional territories. Wikwemikong First Nation and Manitoulin Island are unceded territory — there is no treaty that governs the land and water, giving the nation unextinguished interests over Lake Huron. Members of the community fish daily, both commercially and for sustenance. If Line 5 leaks, Peltier fears the impact on the water, fish and ecosystem.

The Mackinac Bridge extends over the Strats of Mackinac near the location of the Line 5 pipeline. Photo: Rudolph Arnstein / Unsplash

Wikwemikong also draws its drinking water directly from Lake Huron. Peltier pointed to Trudeau’s repeated statement that “no relationship is more important to Canada than the relationship with Indigenous Peoples.” 

“This is one of those opportunities for the federal government to demonstrate to the citizens of Canada, as well as the First Nations people that live in Canada, how they’re going to protect water,” Peltier said.

Wikwemikong has close relationships with Native American tribes in Michigan, including Bay Mills Indian Community on the upper peninsula, one of a long list of tribes that support decommissioning Line 5. 

“We’re talking about protecting our Garden of Eden.”

Whitney Gravelle, tribal attorney for Bay Mills, said her community and four other native tribes signed the 1836 Treaty of Washington with the U.S., which ceded the land that is now Michigan. Under the treaty, the tribes are guaranteed protection of their hunting, gathering and fishing rights in Lake Huron. All five tribes have passed resolutions calling for the shut down of Line 5 through the straits. To the best of Gravelle’s knowledge, none of the five tribes consented to the Line 5 easement. The Narwhal reached out to the other four tribes; two did not reply before publication. Aaron Payment, chairperson of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and James Branskey, general counsel of the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, said their communities were never consulted and did not consent to the easement.

A spill would pollute nearby wetlands, where tribal members collect berries and medicines, and destroy spawning grounds, Gravelle said. Bay Mills members fish daily in the straits for lake whitefish, lake trout, walleye, perch and salmon. They use the fish for sustenance and ceremony and sell it as part of a commercial fishery. 

The fish also carry spiritual significance. Gravelle shared a teaching passed down through generations: long ago in a time of famine, her people were suffering. The Creator told the White Fish Clan to walk into the water and sacrifice themselves so they could become lake whitefish and feed the people for the next seven generations. “Our people know that if there is lake whitefish in the water, it is meant to provide for and protect our people,” she said.

The straits were a traditional meeting place and burial grounds for thousands of years before settlers arrived and are now home to archaeological sites. For Anishinaabe people, the creation story takes place at the Straits of Mackinac, Gravelle explained: “We’re talking about protecting our Garden of Eden.”

Whitefish are nutritionally, culturally and spiritually significant to the Bay Mills Indian Community, who worry a Line 5 spill could harm the species. Photo: Cannon Colegrove

Tribal Rights are more than just historically and culturally important — they also affect the legal calculus for everyone involved in the Line 5 dispute. The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld treaties with Native Americans as the “supreme law of the land,” Gravelle said. If treaties are broken, tribes can either engage with state and federal agencies or file legal action to reaffirm rights or seek damages after harm. 

By law, Gravelle said, state and federal agencies must protect Treaty Rights, meaning they must guard the Great Lakes from a potential oil spill. She referred to a case in which tribes sued Washington State for building culverts that obstructed salmon runs and led to collapse of the fish population. The case went to the Supreme Court, which affirmed a lower court decision siding with the tribes. 

Gravelle declined to comment on whether Bay Mills is considering a lawsuit related to the existing section of Line 5 through the straits, but said they are monitoring the situation closely and are challenging permits to the tunnel project. “We’re hopeful that state and federal agencies do what’s right and what is in the public’s best interest,” she said. 

Payment wouldn’t say if the Sault Tribe is considering a lawsuit, but said all five tribes that agreed to the 1836 treaty are unified in calling for the shut down of Line 5. When asked about a potential lawsuit, he said, “We could do this the easy way or the hard way.”

‘It’s a tough one’

It’s not clear how the conflict will end. If approved, the tunnel project wouldn’t be completed before 2024, an optimistic timeline. Whitmer is up for re-election in 2022 and has so far stood her ground. Enbridge has said it won’t shut down the pipeline without a court order, indicating the company is likely to exhaust its legal options. It’s not clear what enforcement action Michigan might take if Enbridge doesn’t close the line. Meanwhile, ships continue to pass through the straits over a pipeline full of oil.

Schwab said the same pipeline could not be approved today due to improved environmental regulations. “What do you do when you’ve got a legacy problem that wouldn’t be allowed to be built today?” Schwab asked. “It’s a tough one.”

— With files from Emma McIntosh

Updated Oct. 6, 2021, at 4:31 p.m. ET: This story was updated to include that Canada has invoked the 1977 Transit Pipelines Treaty, and that Michigan has filed to end mediation talks with Enbridge.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This investigation is a cross-border collaboration between The Narwhal and Environmental Health News.

Workers at a steel plant on the Canada-U.S. border are being exposed to lethal, cancer-causing chemicals “with the full knowledge of the employer,” Algoma Steel, according to complaints obtained by The Narwhal and Environmental Health News through a freedom of information request. 

The complaints appear to show a series of red flags leading up to an incident in which three workers were exposed to dangerous chemicals and rushed to hospital. One worker alleged the company had provided respirators that were inadequate to protect them. 

The company, which operates the plant in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., is also facing charges for two critical injuries (an injury is deemed critical if a worker breaks an arm or leg, for instance). Ontario’s Ministry of Labour is investigating the workplace exposures, but workers and the union allege the company is putting them in danger and the ministry is too relaxed when it comes to enforcement. A current Algoma Steel employee said the company has become “reactive not proactive,” and if workers don’t push for an investigation, near-miss accidents “get swept under the rug.”

Between February 2019 and February 2020, there were 10 critical injuries and five cases of exposure to chemicals including benzene and asbestos, which cause cancer, and hydrogen cyanide, an extremely poisonous chemical used in death row executions. Over that same period, 89 people also reported occupational illnesses and disease.

Evidence of widespread exposures and injuries at Algoma Steel come months after Environmental Health News and The Narwhal reported that the region already suffers from high cancer rates from industrial pollution, and that Algoma Steel has an exemption from Ontario allowing it to emit cancer-causing benzene and benzo-a-pyrene well above provincial limits. In the wake of the investigation, government officials have taken little meaningful action to protect residents who live near the steel plant from ongoing pollution, apart from $4 million in federal funding to decrease the steel plant’s carbon dioxide  emissions and $95,000 to remediate the St. Mary’s River, which separates Sault. Ste Marie, Ont., from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

‘Them plants are killing us’: inside a cross-border battle against cancer in Ontario’s rust belt

The region may soon welcome a massive ferrochrome plant, which has stoked concerns of even more local pollution and illness. In August, Noront, the company behind the proposed ferrochrome plant, resumed mining exploration in northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire. Noront CEO Alan Coutts said he expects no delays to the construction of a northern access road to the Ring of Fire, scheduled to begin in 2021, allowing mining to start in 2025. Noront plans to mine chromite and process it in a ferrochrome plant slated for construction in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., raising the prospect of hundreds of jobs and fears of more cancer. Noront denies the plant will increase cancer risk.

Algoma Steel Inc. is Canada’s second largest steel producer and the largest employer in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., with about 2,800 people on its payroll. It produces steel for construction and military vehicles, among other uses, with the majority of sales to U.S. customers.

Algoma Steel didn’t respond to specific questions about incidents but sent a general statement saying it is committed to the health and safety of workers: “Safety is the first responsibility of all Algoma employees including management,” spokesperson Brenda Stenta said. “Our commitment to safety equally extends to contractors and visitors to our premises.” 

Workers at the Algoma Steel plant are at risk of being exposed to cancer-causing chemicals and say the company isn’t doing enough to protect them. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Red flags at Algoma Steel

After publishing an investigation on the impact of industrial pollution on residents, we wanted to learn more about the health and safety impacts on workers at Algoma Steel. We obtained a list of complaints to Ontario’s Ministry of Labour from Feb. 1, 2019 to Feb. 28, 2020. The complaints range from non-critical to critical injuries and exposure to toxic chemicals. 

The complaints appear to show red flags in the coke-making department leading up to an incident in which three workers were exposed to hydrogen cyanide gas, which interferes with the use of oxygen in the body and can be rapidly fatal, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The steel-making process requires coking coal, which is heated to more than 1,000 C, about 1,800 F, in ovens until it forms hard, grey rocks, known as coke.)

On May 8, 2019, an employee reported issues in the coke-making department, including air quality issues, lack of control of airborne hazards, a strange smell from water in the building after rainfalls, lack of a heat stress policy program and workers who weren’t trained on a program for coke emissions. In response to the complaint, Ontario’s Ministry of Labour closed its investigation and took no enforcement action.

On Nov. 29, 2019, employees in the construction department reported they were “unduly exposed to benzene and hydrogen cyanide with the full knowledge of the employer.” They reported the exposure happened while they were doing construction on a low-pressure main, and on the coke-making batteries, and also in the by-products department. They said the types of respirators the company provided were inappropriate to protect them from dangerous chemicals and there wasn’t enough ventilation to mitigate the hazards.

Workers in Algoma Steel’s coke-making department have reported several issues, including poor air quality and lack of training. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

An inspector visited the plant on Dec. 2 and said the company was resolving the issue and the decanter was being taken out of service. The ministry said construction stopped until the leak was repaired and the company made air quality monitoring available. The ministry said workers are required to wear a self-contained breathing apparatus — a mask that provides clean air from an air tank — when draining coke oven gas condensate “but we don’t know what they were provided with on this specific date as the field visit was conducted on an alternate date.” Again, the ministry closed its investigation and took no enforcement action. 

Three months later, on Feb. 26, 2020, an employee reported hydrogen cyanide gas leaking from coke oven batteries, caused by “problems with the by-product and the employer’s inability to clean the liquor.” 

As we previously reported, on Feb. 26, 2020, workers were clearing coke oven sludge from a pipe when the hose of the vacuum truck burst and exposed workers to hydrogen cyanide. Three workers were rushed to hospital. 

The ministry issued two compliance orders to the company in response to the Feb. 26 incidents and wouldn’t answer questions about events on Feb. 26 because its investigation is ongoing. 

An Algoma Steel health and safety manual from 1982 is shown on the desk of Mike DaPrat, president of the United Steelworkers Union Local 2251, the union that represents most of Algoma’s workers. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Asbestos exposure

On Feb. 27, 2019, an employee complained that workers were exposed to cancer-causing asbestos inside the steel plant. Asbestos was falling in two areas of the building, in the basement and on the operating floor. 

“The employer has been informed about it a couple times since Dec. 16, 2018, but not looking into it,” the complaint states. An inspector visited on March 5 and issued an order asking the company to update its asbestos record at least once a year and when it becomes aware of new asbestos information. 

“The inspector noted that the abatement was scheduled for that week and that the employer has an extensive asbestos management program,” the ministry said.

These dangerous incidents fit into a larger pattern. Since 2001, Algoma steelworkers and their families have reported a total of 1,430 cases of serious workplace illnesses and cancers. Of those cases, 960 claims have been denied and only 320 claims allowed.

With smoke stacks belching fumes 365 days a year next to residents’ homes, the hazards extend outside the walls of the steel plant. Ontario’s Ministry of Environment granted Algoma Steel an exemption known as a “site specific standard” that allows it to emit cancer-causing benzene and benzo-a-pyrene well above provincial limits. A 2019 study found disease clusters of a rare form of leukemia in four industrial border cities, including Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., pointing to pollution as one possible cause.

Algoma Steel has permission from Ontario to emit cancer-causing benzene and benzo-a-pyrene well above provincial limits through what’s known as a “site specific standard.” Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Ministry of Labour prosecuting Algoma Steel after two critical injuries

The ministry is prosecuting Algoma Steel on three charges stemming from two critical injuries on Feb. 4 and Feb. 5, 2019: failing to provide information, instruction or supervision to a worker to protect their health or safety, failing to ensure workplace procedures were carried out and failing to take every reasonable precaution to protect a worker. It’s not clear exactly what happened to cause these critical injuries — the court documents contain few details and the ministry and the company would not comment. On the second charge, court documents allege the company failed to ensure steps were constructed in a manner to prevent a trip hazard.

The court case has been postponed due to COVID-19. 

Inspectors with the Ministry of Labour can issue an order, a legal direction to the employer to comply with the law within a certain time period, or if the hazard is imminent, to comply immediately or stop work. Inspectors can also issue a requirement, which is a legal direction saying they have a legal obligation to cooperate with an inspector and provide information. If a company doesn’t comply with orders or requirements, the Ministry of Labour can initiate prosecution under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, and the Ministry of the Attorney General brings those charges forward in court. If convicted, the court can impose fines.

The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge connects Canada and the U.S. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Why are workplace accidents happening?

Algoma Steel made more than $2 billion in revenue in 2018, and $1.339 billion in the first six months of 2019. Last year, in response to tariffs, the Canadian and Ontario governments invested $150 million in Algoma Steel. Ontario Minister for Energy, Northern Development and Mines Greg Rickford said a $60-million loan from the province would secure thousands of jobs and pensions, ensure the company remains competitive in a tough market, “and signals Northern Ontario is open for business.” The company took another hit from COVID-19, recently announcing layoffs. 

Even as the federal and provincial governments invest in Algoma Steel, the company has not faced any fines or convictions for any of the incidents detailed in the complaints between February 2019 and February 2020. The maximum fine for a corporation charged under Ontario’s Health and Safety Act is $1.5 million per charge, if convicted.

Employers are required under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to protect workers’ safety, and if they don’t, the ministry can issue orders and requirements and take them to court if they don’t comply.

“Our number one priority is the health and safety of workers throughout Ontario,” a ministry spokesperson said. “That’s why from Feb 1, 2019, to Feb 28, 2020, the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development issued 30 orders and four requirements to Algoma Steel.”

United Steelworkers Union Local 2251 president Mike DaPrat was surprised to hear Algoma Steel was facing charges. “The company never bothered to let us know — that’s nice,” he said. DaPrat says a lack of ministry enforcement is the problem; Ontario wants to be “open for business” so the Ministry of Labour is lenient, he explained, citing the death of worker Rocky Scullino in 2008, in which a heavy chunk of iron fell and struck him in the head. Essar Steel Algoma, the previous owner of Algoma Steel, pleaded guilty to failing to ensure overhead guarding was in place to prevent falling materials. The company was fined $375,000.

Mike DaPrat, president of the United Steelworkers Union Local 2251, was surprised to hear Algoma Steel is facing charges. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The ministry spokesperson said the ministry doesn’t impose fines — only a court can do that.

Reacting to the fines after Scullino’s death, a current employee who has worked at Algoma Steel for 40 years said, “That’s a case of beer in yours and my terms, it’s nothing.” 

Requesting anonymity due to fear of reprisal, he said the company is slow to address small issues that later balloon into bigger problems, and supervisors are hesitant to report near-miss accidents. He said it’s been “mayhem” inside the plant during the pandemic, with the steelworks shutting down and starting back up again. He said while the company is taking the virus seriously, ministry inspectors are doing investigations remotely, online or by phone. Normally workers would do circle checks of equipment, but now they go into an office and check off the paperwork. “They’re done, they’ve got their asses covered now,” he said.

The ministry said it is doing inspections in person and over the phone, as it has always done: “We will spare no expense to ensure health and safety laws are followed. Inspectors are visiting workplaces in-person whenever it is appropriate to do so. Their top priority is ensuring workers are kept safe.”

“Regarding COVID-19, Algoma Steel’s preventative measures and safety protocols have been reviewed by both the Algoma Public Health Unit and the Ontario Ministry of Labour,” Algoma Steel spokesperson Brenda Stenta said. “As of this date, we are pleased to say that Algoma Steel has not had any positive cases and we continue to audit compliance with company protocols daily.”

“Algoma Steel has, in my 40 years, become reactive and not proactive,” the worker said. “Generally we’re disappointed in the complacency of getting stuff addressed. No accountability, that’s exactly what it is, no accountability.” 

The worker said the danger to employees stems from a combination of aging infrastructure at the 100-year-old plant, a series of bankruptcies and new owners, cultural factors that lead to injuries and lack of enforcement. 

“There are so many risks around every corner,” he said.

“Algoma Steel has, in my 40 years, become reactive and not proactive.”

He recalled an incident in which a 40 pound piece of steel railing fell from 20 feet above, missing another employee’s head by two inches. “That was a very near miss — that could’ve killed him.” But in this case, he alleged the supervisor didn’t want to report the incident because nobody got hurt. He said they had to fight to get it reported. “They tried to bury that. …We went nuts about that.”

He said if employees don’t push for an investigation, near misses “get swept under the rug.” Not many employees push supervisors to report near misses because they could be labeled troublemakers. “There would be repercussions down the road, no doubt. Now the supervisors are all on you, watching your every move.”

“That was just one incident that I was involved with, and that happened all the time,” he said.

He said the ultimate effect is incidents go unreported so the ministry doesn’t investigate, leading to a more dangerous work environment.

“All Algoma employees are required to adhere to all safety procedures and to report every incident, regardless of severity,” Algoma Steel spokesperson Brenda Stenta said. “Our incident reporting system logs every incident, tracks investigations and corrective actions, and is transparent to all employees and union locals.”

There are cultural factors, too. Older workers are willing to put their lives on the line to ensure the plant keeps running, the worker explained. They know the steel plant is the biggest employer in the city, and it has to make money to keep people employed. Recently, he said a coke oven gas condensate line, which is full of benzene and other dangerous chemicals, sprang a leak. His supervisor told him, “get out of there,” and he did, but three other workers wouldn’t leave the building until they finished the task they had to do.

DaPrat said there should be heavy fines for infractions. “If the speed limit is 30 miles an hour [50 km per hour] in this city, if there were no fines, how fast do you think people would be going?”

“Everyone gets up in public and says, safety is the number one priority,” DaPrat said. “Wait a minute, how can it be number one if you’re having all these problems?”

Update January 6, 2021 12:12 p.m. PST: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the Algoma Steel plant is owned by India’s Essar Group but has been updated to reflect the fact that Algoma Steel Inc. purchased the plant in 2018. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This investigation is a cross-border collaboration between The Narwhal and Environmental Health News.

SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. — A January storm has covered the bungalows here in sparkling snow. Men wearing gloves and hats pulled over their ears steer snow-blowers in and out of driveways, launching powder into the air.

This small city in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is where the state kisses Ontario. An international bridge connects them across the St. Marys River that flows between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. The river marks the international border between the U.S. and Canada.

Photographer Christopher Katsarov Luna drives slowly. I turn around in the passenger seat to watch Torry Ruddell in the back, her brown hair falling as she hunches over hand-drawn maps of the area. Many houses are coloured red, indicating that at least one person there has or had cancer.

“Down there my great-grandparents lived,” Ruddell, 44, points.

“It’s got a red circle,” I notice.

“Yeah, my great grandmother, my grandmother, my great aunt and all of my aunts had breast cancer,” she says in a matter-of-fact tone. “My great grandfather had skin cancer.” Her mother also survived uterine and cervical cancer.

We keep driving. “Those people right here, their son had brain cancer,” she says. “He passed away when we were young, still in high school.”

Ruddell holds a homemade map depicting incidences of cancer and other serious or rare illness in households surrounding the Northwestern Leather Company tannery, which dumped toxic chemicals, including chromium-6, into the local environment for half a century in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

There are other serious illnesses on the map, too, including heart and autoimmune diseases and deformities. But the homes in red are what we focus on. 

Many things can increase one’s risk of developing cancer — genetics, smoking, exposure to the sun or radon gas — but there’s no doubt in her mind what’s making people sick.

Ruddell grew up across the street from the Northwestern Leather Company tannery that once stood in this area. From 1900 until it closed in 1958, it dumped toxic chemicals on site. Testing in the late 1970s by Sault Ste. Marie State College and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources found especially high levels of hexavalent chromium in the soil and groundwater.

Hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, is a chemical made infamous by the film Erin Brockovich, which tells the true story of how Pacific Gas & Electric contaminated drinking water with chromium-6 in the town of Hinkley, Calif., causing people to develop cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified it as carcinogenic to humans, and studies have shown that workers exposed to chromium-6 have a higher instance of lung cancer. Even at low levels, chromium-6 can cause dermatitis and skin ulcers.

A man clears snow after a winter storm, in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The Michigan tannery site was remediated in 2007, but data obtained by non-profit organization the Environmental Working Group shows the area still has unhealthy amounts of chromium-6 in its drinking water.

As a kid, Ruddell played on the former tannery site, wading in the mud up to her neck. She picked and ate berries that caused rashes doctors couldn’t explain. There were no signs or fencing warning people to stay away.

Today, a six-foot chain-link fence surrounds the site. On the other side of the fence, there’s a sign covered in snow. I climb over and brush away the snow. It warns against digging wells for drinking water: “Buried tannery waste located on site.”

Ruddell is photographed near the site of a closed tannery where she used to play in mud contaminated with chromium-6 in the community of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., on Sunday, Jan., 19, 2020. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

But the tannery isn’t the only source of pollution here. There’s a scent in the Michigan air that’s familiar to people on both sides of the river. It smells like burning tires and rotten eggs.

I ask Ruddell where it’s coming from. “That’d be from across the water there,” she says.

On the other side of the river, a brown steel plant with tall chimneys sticks out against the white landscape. Algoma Steel,  the second-largest steel plant in Canada, has stood there since 1902. It belches fumes every day of the year, including Christmas, and has a special exemption from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks allowing it to emit benzene and benzo(a)pyrene, both cancer-causing pollutants, well above provincial health standards.

It’s too late to do anything about the legacy pollution from the tannery or the steel plant, but Ruddell is part of a growing movement of people in the U.S. and Canada organizing against what they perceive as a new threat.

I remember Ruddell’s words when I first called in December: “Them plants are killing us, and they want to put another one in there.”

The Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge photographed from St. Mary’s Island, Ont. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The Ring of Fire

For nearly a decade, companies and governments have eyed northern Ontario’s Ring of Fire, a circular mining concession named after the Johnny Cash song, as a promise of economic prosperity. Canadian mining company Noront Resources owns the vast majority of the mining rights in the chromite-rich region, which spans 5,000 square kilometres (2,000 square miles) of the James Bay Lowlands, one of the largest wetlands in the world.

Mining experts have their doubts about how much the Ring of Fire is actually worth, and a lack of roads in the region has hampered development for years. But a recent commitment from the Ontario government to build roads has reinvigorated Noront’s plans to mine chromite and process it in a plant the company hopes to build in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., nicknamed the Sault (pronounced ‘the Soo’).

Last year Noront entered into a 99-year lease with Algoma Steel to use a brownfield site (a site with a history of pollution) next to the steel plant to build a new ferrochrome production facility — the first of its kind in North America.

The Algoma steel plant after sunset, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Chromite is a mineral used to make stainless steel. First it is converted into ferrochrome through a high-temperature smelting process that can produce chromium-6.

The facility would sit on the banks of the St. Marys River, which connects two massive freshwater lakes and crucial fisheries. It would also be near people’s homes, leading locals to consider selling their houses. 

One man told me his family has lived in the area since 1840, and if the plant is built, he’s moving to Panama.

First Nations leaders came forward to say they weren’t consulted. More than 50 doctors signed an open letter opposing the facility and a Facebook group called “No Ferrochrome Plant” sprung up, attracting 4,600 members. 

Cancer rates in the Sault are already high — the area has the highest age-standardized rate of cancer in Ontario and the highest provincial rates of lung and prostate cancer. Smoking is more common in the region but doesn’t fully account for the rates. The city’s P6C postal code also has double the national rate of a rare cancer, acute myeloid leukemia. A 2019 study found “disease clusters” of the leukemia in four industrial border cities, including the Sault, suggesting pollution from industry as a possible cause.

The facility will export stainless steel to the American market, but Noront says the plant will bring work predominantly to locals, creating 300 to 500 full-time and 1,500 indirect jobs.

The potential economic boost is welcome news to many locals who remember the years of instability and uncertainty when Algoma Steel, the city’s main employer, went bankrupt and was bought by another company in 2007.

Journalist Hilary Beaumont outside the Algoma Steel plant, a major employer of Sault Ste. Marie residents. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The ferrochrome facility will not increase cancer risk in the Sault, Noront president and CEO Alan Coutts insisted in an email. He says the ferrochrome smelting process the company is planning will be nothing like the Erin Brockovich story. 

As a by-product of smelting, “the ferrochrome facility may produce trace amounts of chromium-6, which will be captured on the site and destroyed,” Coutts says. Noront wants to use closed-arc furnaces, which the company says generate the smallest amounts of the toxic chemical in the industry.

“If we can’t build a plant that is safe for the employees, the citizens and the environment, we won’t build it,” Coutts says. Yet suspicions are growing around the long-term viability of Noront and the company’s ability to successfully finance its Ring of Fire and ferrochrome plant aspirations — expected to cost in the tens of billions. As The Globe and Mail reported in October, Noront is in “dire financial shape,” holding US$47.8 million in debt and, because of overhyped projections of accessible mineral value in the Ring of Fire, has had trouble attracting investors.

But those abstracted challenges for Noront have done little to alleviate the concern growing on the ground in the Sault.

Before the ferrochrome announcement, many residents were resigned to the fact that they live in an industrial city with high cancer rates. Now, the possibility of another industrial plant has awoken the fight in them.

Liam O’Conner and Tristan Charron set up an ice fishing shanty in Leigh Bay, west of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., on Jan., 18, 2020. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

‘At what cost?’

With 2,800 employees, the Algoma Steel plant is the largest employer in the Sault, providing the best paying and most stable jobs in the city. It’s the sole source of income for many families and a point of pride for residents. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau underscored the plant’s national importance when he visited workers during his May 2019 re-election campaign.

Algoma churns out steel used in manufacturing, construction, mining and more. Some of it ends up in military vehicles. “That’s a big-dollar contract for us,” says Andrew, a steelworker, who asked that his real name not be used for fear of losing his job.

Speaking over the phone, Andrew says he is grateful for his work. It provides for his family, and his benefits helped pay for his daughter’s leukemia treatment before she passed. 

She was in Grade 8 when she began complaining of pain in her ankle. The doctors in Ottawa did everything they could to keep her alive, Andrew says. She lived just long enough to graduate high school. 

“One day she’s graduating Grade 8. The next day she’s fighting for her life.”

Andrew has worked in industrial plants in Sault Ste. Marie and nearby Sudbury and it pains him to wonder if living near the plants contributed to her cancer.

“I just don’t want to see more children dying of cancer for the greed of these corporations,” he says.

To make steel, iron ore is smelted in blast furnaces where high temperatures, created by coking coal, remove impurities and add carbon. In the process, coking coal is heated to more than 1,000 C (about 1,800 F) in ovens until it forms into hard, grey rocks, known as coke.

The smelting process emits coke oven gas and sulphur, Andrew explains. It smells like rotten eggs. “It’s a putrid smell.”

Work at the plant can be dangerous and Andrew says recent events have made him question whether or not the company can keep him and other workers safe.

Machinist Jack Jonson is photographed while at work at a small mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Machinist Steven Grunewald, who owns a small mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., displays a part he is manufacturing for a machine at Algoma Tubes. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Pieces of machine parts made at Grunewald’s small mill. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

On Feb. 26, a team of Algoma Steel workers were tasked with clearing coke oven sludge from a pipe by flushing it with water, according to Mike Da Prat, president of United Steelworkers Local 2251. Suddenly the hose of the vacuum truck they were using burst, spraying liquid everywhere and exposing workers to hydrogen cyanide. Three workers were rushed to hospital.

“A person got covered in it, and some other people [inhaled] fumes from it,” Da Prat says.

Hydrogen cyanide, a colourless and extremely poisonous gas with a smell of bitter almonds, is produced in coke ovens like those used at Algoma Steel. Hydrogen cyanide is so deadly it’s used as a chemical weapon and for death row executions.

Da Prat says this wasn’t the only incident: in February, two contract workers inhaled hydrogen cyanide while cleaning a tank. They, too, ended up in hospital.

In other recent incidents, blood work revealed workers had low red blood cell counts, a telltale sign of benzene exposure, Da Prat says.

“We’ve got job safe practices and workplace procedure,” Da Prat says. “What happened is, through sloppy management, they’ve been lax, [the practices and procedures] haven’t been adhered to, they haven’t enforced them.” He says workers can’t sue Algoma; they have to file a claim through the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board. 

Mike Da Prat, president of the United Steelworkers Local Union 2251, the union that represents most of Algoma’s workers, points to a photograph of the Algoma site in the union’s office in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

“It’ll be nothing unless you’ve got severe injuries.” The loss of a kidney and part of a bladder was worth $3,300 in a 2008 compensation claim, he says.

Algoma Steel spokesperson Brenda Stenta says the workers who ended up in hospital were all released. In response to the incidents, the company introduced new safety rules requiring workers to wear more personal protective equipment. The company is investigating the events alongside the steelworker unions and the Ontario Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development. Stenta says worker safety is the company’s top priority and it will act on the findings of the investigation.

When Andrew heard his co-workers had been exposed to hydrogen cyanide, he felt frustrated and upset. “It’s like we are the guinea pigs for companies’ profits,” he says.

Andrew first awoke to the dangers of industry when he worked at a plant in Sudbury. The air inside was thick with dust and smoke. In the decade since he left Sudbury and moved back to the Sault, at least 10 people he worked with in Sudbury have passed away. The youngest was 39. “Most of it was cancer,” he says.

An Algoma Steel Health and Safety Manual from 1982 is photographed on Da Prat’s desk. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Da Prat keeps Algoma safety equipment on display in his office. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Da Prat says steelworkers at Algoma Steel cannot directly sue the company but can put in a claim for compensation through an insurance board. According to compensation guidelines, “loss of a kidney or a bladder a year ago was $3,300,” he says. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The conditions are similar at the Algoma Steel plant, but he doesn’t have much choice. “I know I’m putting my health on the line working there every day to provide for my family, but there’s nothing much out there in the city, ’cause it’s a steel town, eh.”

“Everybody knows the steel plant’s dirty, but it’s what built the city,” he continues. “If the steel plant did shut, this city would become a ghost town.”

Losing his daughter and friends has made Andrew think hard about the ferrochrome facility.

“It’s insane for the city to allow a smelter that will employ 300 people, maybe more, for the profit of the mining industry, where they’re not even looking at the health and safety of the population.”

A study of a ferrochrome plant in Finland found that the plant’s emissions contaminated wild berries with chromium-6 and other heavy metals. Concentrations were higher within three kilometres (about 1.8 miles) of the facility. While no one lives within a 2.5-kilometre radius of the Finland plant, people live across the street from the proposed site of Noront’s facility.

The Algoma Steel plan is visible behind this Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. residential neighbourhood. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Some Sault residents were under the impression the facility will be modelled after the Finland plant, but Coutts says that’s not the case. Noront’s chief development officer Stephen Flewelling has said the facility will be the first ferrochrome plant of its kind in the world because of its unique design.

Coutts says the design by Canadian engineering firm Hatch will use direct current electric arc smelting and preheat the ore. According to Noront, the process will recover more chromite so it can end up in the ferrochrome rather than in the leftover waste products known as slag. He says direct current results in better control and capture of chromium-6.

Coutts says the facility will also have “excellent dust control and capture,” which will allow dust from the furnace to be recycled.

Chromium-6 forms in the presence of heat and oxygen, Noront says, so the facility will smelt the ore in a non-oxygenating environment.

But Coutts says the design won’t be finalized until three to five years from now, raising the question of how the company can already be so sure of its safety.

Andrew says unemployed young people desperate for work might see the facility as a benefit to the city.

“It’s creating jobs,” he says. “But at what cost?”

Houses in the Bayview neighbourhood of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., fall within a few hundred metres of the Algoma Steel plant. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Cancer claims

Tammy Francis and her cousin Earl Dunn invite me and photographer Christopher Katsarov Luna to Reggie’s West, a cavernous dive bar frequented by steelworkers in the Sault. We sip cold beer at a table in the back where we won’t be overheard.

Francis, 55, has a small frame and long blond hair that falls in tight waves. She’s standoffish at first but quickly warms up and is unafraid to speak her mind.

She worked at the steel plant for 12 years as a contractor for a fibreglass company. “It’s the dirtiest place I’ve been in my life,” she says. “I’ve been in oil tanks and different things — that steel plant’s no comparison. I refuse to work in there any longer.”

Partly to escape conditions at Algoma Steel, she found work out West. I was lucky to meet her on a trip home as she waits for the next call from Alberta.

Francis has a big family and spends as much time with them as she can. They grew up together in a home in the P6C postal code. But in recent years, her clan has shrunk in numbers. She lost her dad in 2011, followed by her two brothers — all steelworkers, all cancer.

Francis has her dad’s eyes. Reginald Francis was 89 when he died.

Tammy Francis poses for a portrait at Reggie’s West, a bar frequented by steelworkers in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Francis lost her father and two brothers — all former steelworkers — to cancer. Francis says she first learned about the proposed ferrochrome plant in a Facebook post. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The Algoma Steel identity card of Tammy’s father, Reginald Francis. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

On Nov. 20, 2011, he went into the hospital with abdominal pain. The doctors found a mass in his colon. He had surgery on Nov. 22, and passed away Dec. 2.

Workplace Safety and Insurance Board records confirm he worked at the steel plant from 1947 to 1989 and succumbed to colon cancer. Tammy says he smoked cigars and a pipe until he quit in his early 40s.

The union provided The Narwhal and Environmental Health News with a list of occupational disease claims that are currently accepted by the insurance board. It details the toxic chemicals that Algoma Steel workers have been exposed to on the job — benzene, coke oven emissions and asbestos are the most common. Chromium-6 is also on the list; the insurance board says workers may develop lung cancer from cumulative exposure to chromium-6 in steel-making.

When Francis filed her dad’s compensation claim in 2011, the insurance board had a policy covering colon cancer and asbestos exposure, acknowledging an association between the two. But after reviewing his case, the adjudicator wrote in a letter to Francis that she found “limited evidence for an association between stomach cancer and colorectal cancers and exposure in asbestos industries.”

The adjudicator acknowledged her dad may have had “some exposure” to asbestos but not enough to warrant compensation.

Earl Dunn drinks a beer at Reggie’s West as his cousin, Tammy Francis, recounts her battle with the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board for compensation after the loss of her father. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Algoma Steel is visible from this school playground in the Sault, Ont. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

“To qualify for benefits, the evidence must show that it is more probable than not that the workplace exposures at Algoma Steel significantly contributed to the development of his colon cancer,” the adjudicator wrote. “I was not able to conclude that Mr. Francis’s colon cancer was causally related to other workplace exposures at Algoma Steel.”

Francis appealed the decision in 2013 and is still waiting for a response. She contacted the union about his case, but she doesn’t believe the union is doing enough to help.

According to the union, as of Aug. 22, 2019, there were a total of 106 colorectal cancer claims like Francis’s dad at Algoma Steel, but only 10 of those claims were accepted.

The numbers show compensation claims for cancer and other diseases are a long shot. 

Since 2001, Algoma steelworkers and their families have reported a total of 1,430 cases of serious illnesses and cancers. Of those cases, 960 claims have been denied and only 320 claims allowed.

The majority of the total — 895 claims — were for cancer. Only 164 of these were accepted by the insurance board.

In the six years between 2001 and 2007, families filed claims with the insurance board for 40 Algoma Steel workers who died due to occupational disease, according to the union. The deaths led the union to organize an intake clinic in May 2008 to reach out to the community and identify cases that had gone unreported.

Francis doesn’t care about the money. If her dad’s claim had been allowed, she says it would have meant an acknowledgement that Algoma Steel is polluting the city and causing death.

Locals set up an ice fishing tent in Leigh Bay, west of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Emissions from an industrial plant are visible in the background. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

“If I could have had one more hug, one more kiss — not a million dollars could replace that,” she says. “One more day with my father, or my brothers for that matter. I would give my life to have one more conversation.”

Francis heard about the ferrochrome plant from a Facebook post. “First, of course you think jobs for the city,” she explained. “But as soon as I started looking into it at all, I was 100 per cent against it.”

In September, a group of local doctors published an open letter suggesting they might leave town if the ferrochrome facility is built: “Such facilities are strongly associated with increased cancer rates, mortality and poor health. Our community already suffers from excessively high cancer rates, amongst the highest in Ontario.”

“The site of the Noront facility would be in the heart of our city and on the shores of the Great Lakes waterway with the potential to expose the 70,000 people in our city and the 30 million around the Great Lakes to its toxic by-products,” the letter states.

Rob Suppes, the emergency room doctor who spearheaded the letter, told me people come into the ER with injuries and he’s the first one to tell them they have cancer. It’s one of the hardest parts of his job. Sometimes they’re quiet, sometimes they have questions, sometimes they cry. Suppes, who previously practised in Winnipeg, says never before working in the Sault has he had to diagnose so many people with cancer. 

Dr. Rob Suppes was part of a drive to organize medical professionals against the proposed ferrochrome facility. He said since practising medicine in the Sault, he has had to diagnose many people with cancer. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

When Francis read the doctors’ letter, she immediately worried about the health effects, and her grandkids. “What are we leaving them?”

The idea of a ferrochrome plant has made her reflect more on the industry that’s already here.

“The air we breathe in this city is unreal,” she says. “The smell of eggs at times, the cloud over [the Sault] on a sunny day is unreal. Honest to God … I don’t know how they’re getting away with this.”

Algoma Steel’s free pass

Luna and I are up before dawn on a frigid Sunday morning to meet Selva Rasaiah, a former auditor of Algoma Steel who has agreed to show us the plant’s emissions from his favourite vantage point. Rasaiah takes photos of Algoma’s emissions on his own time and writes letters to the Ontario Ministry of Environment when he spots potential violations.

We drive to the base of the towering international bridge on the Canadian side. Rasaiah leads us on foot under the bridge, across train tracks and up a hill through deep snow drifts. At the top of the hill, we see plumes of smoke glowing against the dark sky. The only sounds are a low hum from the steel plant, a truck beeping in the distance and Rasaiah’s voice.

Rasaiah is a talker, especially about environmental regulations. He explains that the clouds we’re seeing are mostly a mix of water vapour and carbon dioxide. Some emissions are from industrial plants owned by other companies: Praxair, an industrial gas company, and Tenaris, steel pipe and tube manufacturer. But the majority of the visible emissions are from the steel plant, Rasaiah says.

Selva Rasaiah describes what can be monitored by observing the visible emissions emanating from the Algoma Steel plant. Rasaiah formerly worked as an emissions auditor inside the plant. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The environment ministry says it sets “science-based” air quality standards to protect human health, but recognizes that companies can’t always meet those requirements. So it grants exemptions — called “site specific standards” — on the condition that emissions improve over time.

As of July 1, 2016, the Ontario air standard for benzene was set at an annual average of 0.45 micrograms per cubic metre. But the ministry allowed Algoma to emit an annual average of 5.5 micrograms per cubic metre until the end of 2019. As of Jan. 1, Algoma Steel’s new limit is an annual average of 2.2 micrograms until June 2021. It’s not yet clear if the company will meet that limit.

The ministry says it monitors compliance with the site-specific standard by confirming that Algoma Steel is implementing an action plan designed to reduce emissions.

Algoma is required to observe and record visible emissions from its coke oven batteries and report them on an annual basis. If the company exceeds air standards, it must submit an updated action plan on how it will address the issue.

But Rasaiah questions the reliability of the company’s self-reporting.

In summer 2018, he worked for Pinchin Ltd., auditing Algoma’s emissions. He used something called Method 303 to check for visible emissions of benzene and benzo(a)pyrene.

When workers fill the ovens with coal, it’s called charging. While working for Pinchin, Rasaiah would look for yellowish-orange raw coking gas coming out when the ovens were charging and time it. This gas contains benzene and sulphur. Rasaiah would count the number of leaks, time them and tap the results into a tablet. The numbers are run through a formula to model the total amounts of benzene and benzo(a)pyrene. 

The Algoma Steel plant operates under “site specific standards” that allow the facility to release emissions greater than those recommended by the Ontario environment ministry. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Although he is no longer an auditor at the plant, Rasaiah continues to visually monitor emissions from the plant and documents them with photos and video. When a reportable event occurs that should trigger a report with the ministry, Rasaiah says he checks the government’s website. There are several recent occasions when emissions events should have been reported to the province, but were not, according to Rasaiah, who says he notifies the ministry every time he documents this happening.

The ministry says it received annual reports from Algoma Steel in 2017 and 2018 showing estimates of its benzene levels were below the site specific standard. Algoma Steel hasn’t handed in its 2019 benzene report yet.

The company also has to meet opacity limits — opacity is the degree to which an emission obstructs light. Algoma must meet a limit of no more than 20 per cent of light blocked over six minutes.

Companies must report discharges and spills to the ministry in a timely manner. Residents can also call the ministry’s Spills Action Centre if they see pollution. When the ministry receives a report, an environmental officer looks into it and decides how to respond. 

The ministry says it takes “swift and prompt actions” when companies break the rules and can fine or prosecute them.

In the last 10 years, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment has prosecuted Algoma Steel and its predecessor Essar Steel Algoma on two occasions, leading to convictions and $200,000 in fines. Also in the last decade, the ministry has issued four environmental penalty orders with an additional $27,000 in fines, and 11 provincial officer’s orders requiring improvements to operations.

Rasaiah says air pollution from the steel plant is drifting across the river from Canada to the U.S. Fine particulate matter, also called PM 2.5, is tiny particles in the air so small that when inhaled, they can reach the lungs and lead to all kinds of health issues, including asthma. Long-term exposure can lead to lung cancer and heart disease. 

“It’s going to affect your lungs, no different than if you smoke,” he says. 

Rasaiah says Algoma Steel’s emissions drift across the St. Marys River into the U.S. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

An individual walks toward an entry point at Algoma Steel just after sunset. The facility operates day and night, every day of the year. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan installed an air quality monitor for PM 2.5 on the U.S. side of the river to monitor fumes from Algoma Steel.

“I feel that the American side is by far getting the worst pollutants, because of the direction of the wind,” says Robin Clark, an ecologist with the council. 

It’s tough to prove, though. The group removed the air quality monitor last year because PM 2.5 levels weren’t high enough to be of concern. But Clark believes the monitor was in the wrong location for the wind direction, leading to lower readings.

“We’re all in the same air shed, whether it’s Canada or the U.S. We all own this air that we’re breathing,” she says. “Except now a corporation is going to be taking it further.”

Noront hasn’t approached the ministry about the ferrochrome plant yet, so it’s not clear what specific limits or regulations the facility would have to meet.

Noront says they will run an environmentally responsible facility, but Rasaiah asks: if the ministry gives exemptions to Algoma Steel, will it go easy on the ferrochrome plant too?

Since leaving his position as an emissions auditor at Algoma Steel, Rasaiah regularly documents visible emissions at the facility from this hillside. He reports his findings to the environment ministry. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

First Nations opposition

Seven people attend a “petition party” on a Saturday in January in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. The storm outside may have kept people away, but Rasaiah is here, eager to chat about regulations.

Kathie Brosemer, environmental program manager for the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians, is organizing events like this regularly to gather signatures opposing Noront’s facility. She lives in Canada but travels to the U.S. for work.

The Michigan-based Sault Tribe passed a resolution against the facility, stating that the tribe must protect the land, air and water, and that ferrochrome production has a track record of pollution.

A woman drops by with a yellow folder containing four pages of signatures, about 240 names, bringing the total to about 1,000.

Kathie Brosemer poses for a portrait at her home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., where she regularly hosts petition parties against Noront’s proposed ferrochrome facility. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The Sault Tribe is not the only Indigenous community opposing the ferrochrome plant.

In December, the Batchewana First Nation on the north side of the river came out against the project. In a statement, the chief and council said the decision did not come lightly, and it was their duty to protect the land and waterways. Chief Dean Sayers did not reply to a request for comment.

The chief and council reached the decision based on several key principles, including the Water Declaration of the First Nations in Ontario, which states that First Nations have laws and protocols to ensure clean water for all living things, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which says they have the legal right to own, use, develop and control their lands and resources.

Garden River Chief Andy Rickard was elected last September and the ferrochrome facility has been top of his agenda since then. He says many Garden River community members disapprove of the project. Noront has reached out to him to set up a meeting. He says his community will make a decision once the company answers their many questions.

Rickard says his community suffers from high rates of cancer, especially among young people. Too often he sees online fundraisers for cancer treatments.

Cancer survivors and patients gather at a home in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., on Jan., 19, 2020. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The Sault has higher than average cancer rates and many locals fear Norot’s proposed ferrochrome facility will increase the risk of cancer in the region. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Residents have complained about a lack of public consultation surrounding Noront’s proposal. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The chief of another local community, the Missanabie Cree First Nation, declined to comment for this story.

Noront CEO Alan Coutts says the company had set up meetings with the chiefs and councils of the First Nations. Asked if any First Nations had consented to the project, Coutts says, “We have not asked for consent — it’s too early in the process. Once we have the design and test work complete, we will communicate the results and will allow people to make informed decisions based on factual information.”

Coutts says the company had not yet consulted with anyone on the Michigan side of the river. He says the company was currently scheduling meetings with “various interest groups, including in Michigan.”

“Consultation is a formal process that will begin when the design is finalized and the environmental assessment begins,” he says. 

Blindsided

Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Christian Provenzano says the city first began talks with Noront about the facility in November 2016. The company announced it was holding a formal competition, asking cities to compete against each other to be selected as the site for the ferrochrome facility. 

On May 10, 2017, Noront presented the idea in the Sault during a luncheon. Provenzano says this was a public event and listing for the meeting notes tickets were available for sale: $28 plus tax for Chamber of Commerce members to attend; $38 plus tax for non-members.

The mayor says in an email that there was “little time” between the date that Noront sent a request for information and the deadline for a proposal. He says he didn’t have enough information to host public consultations.

Usually if a company is selecting a site for a facility, it will do work to identify an appropriate site. In this case, Noront invited cities to do that legwork.

“There was so much interest in attracting the facility that we wanted any city that qualified to have a chance to attract the plant,” Coutts says.

A playground in the Bayview neighbourhood of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., falls within a few hundred meters of Algoma Steel. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

According to emails obtained through freedom of information laws, the mayor and city representatives made dinner reservations with the Noront team on Feb. 1, 2018, at Luma, a contemporary seafood restaurant in downtown Toronto, to present their submission. 

Coutts says he didn’t pay for dinner. The mayor says the city split the bill with the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corporation.

As the city courted Noront, there were still no public consultations. Then on May 7, 2019, Noront and government officials announced the “good news.” The mayor said after a hard few years the Sault had been selected for the ferrochrome plant and was “open for business.” He said this was only the beginning of the process, and next steps would include environmental assessments and consultation.

Blowback was immediate.

Brosemer, environmental program manager for the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians, gathers petitions against the ferrochrome plant. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The Clean North office where a petition party was held and organized by Brosemer, on Jan., 18, 2020. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Volunteers gather to collect signatures against the ferrochrome plant. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

The next day, Batchewana First Nation issued a press release saying the announcement “came as a shock” and they had not consented. Chief Dean Sayers says he had met with the Sault Ste. Marie Economic Development Corporation in January 2018, but says “they didn’t go far beyond a simple introduction to the project.” Sayers says the nation sent a letter to the city outlining the steps forward to secure consent, but never heard back.

On its website, the city says its bid to Noront “included letters of support from Batchewana First Nation, Garden River First Nation and Missanabie Cree First Nation.”

Asked about the letter of support, Garden River Chief Andy Rickard says, “I think that’s a false interpretation of that.” He says the previous chief had provided a letter, but it did not grant consent.

“It wasn’t in support of the project, it was just in support of the application going in,” Rickard says.

It’s hard to know exactly what the bid contained because the city won’t make it public. The Narwhal and Environmental Health News filed a freedom of information request asking for it, but the city refused to release it. We have appealed the decision.

Aman Sangar is studying to becoming a welder in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Sangar lives in a home with several other students adjacent to the Algoma Steel plant. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

On Oct. 3, after sustained backlash, the mayor held a news conference. “Everything that has happened to date has happened within the full view of the public,” he said, adding that Noront doesn’t have permission to build the facility yet.

Provenzano says he understands criticism that the city didn’t engage enough with the public before submitting a bid, but adds there will be an environmental assessment, permits and public consultation before the facility can be built.

That’s not entirely accurate.

According to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, private sector projects including ferrochrome production facilities or smelters “are not automatically subject to Ontario’s Environmental Assessment Act.”

The environment minister could designate it for an environmental assessment, or the proponent can volunteer for one. The ministry says Noront has not yet volunteered for an environmental assessment.

“In three to five years, after the engineering, design, test work and economic analysis is completed, if we decide to progress, we would initiate a governmental assessment,” Coutts tells me in an email.

Once built, industrial plants stand for decades. In the case of the steel plant, as long as a century. They are the scaffolding on which people build their lives. Will the ferrochrome facility ever really be built? It’s not clear. But it has awoken a town to what they have in their backyards.

The snow crunches under our feet as Ruddell and I walk toward the old tannery site on the Michigan side of the river. Two snowmobiles zoom past. “This all should be blocked off, all of it, even the snowmobile trails,” she says.

Algoma Steel, visible from across the St. Marys River, in Michigan. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

Ruddell said she is frustrated that Americans living near the proposed ferrochrome facility don’t have the right to fight the plant being built, even though they could be negatively affected by emissions. Photo: Christopher Katsarov Luna / The Narwhal

I ask Ruddell how she feels about the ferrochrome plant. 

“Some people would look at it as, this area’s already been hit, who cares? But if that happens, there’s no fixing anything then. That’s dangerous. I’ve looked into these things enough that I know what can happen.”

She worries that Americans can’t stop the ferrochrome plant. “Especially being on this side, how much can we really fight against them in Canada?”

“We can do and say whatever to try to stop it, but whose ear do you gotta pull on? I don’t know. Does it worry me? Heck yeah.”

Update April 7, 2020 12:33 p.m. PST: This article was updated to note that in a 2008 worker compensation, a kidney and part of a bladder was valued at $3,300, according to Mike Da Prat, president of United Steelworkers Local 2251. Previously the story indicated the $3,300 figure referred to compensation for a kidney or a bladder last year. 

Like what you’re reading? Sign up for The Narwhal’s weekly newsletter.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.