In October, B.C. Premier John Horgan made a visit to the Rio Tinto Alcan smelter on the banks of the Douglas Channel in Kitimat.

He praised the facility for being “a great example of how companies can improve conditions for workers and reduce pollution all while improving their bottom line.”

What he didn’t mention was the ongoing battle at Rio Tinto Alcan over a provincial permit that allowed the company to increase sulphur dioxide pollution by more than 50 per cent, or the union representing 800 workers at the smelter that appealed that permit, saying the increase in pollution was a direct threat to their health.

Exposure to sulphur dioxide aggravates the respiratory systems of asthmatics and is known to negatively affect the respiratory systems of children and the elderly.

At the heart of the controversy is a decision by the B.C. Ministry of Environment in 2013, which allowed the smelter to increase its sulphur dioxide emissions into the Kitimat airshed during a $5 billion expansion project. The ministry approved the increase in emissions under an environmental monitoring plan that would measure, but not prevent, the impacts of the pollution on human health until 2019, when the plan would be revisited.

B.C. did not require the company to install scrubbers, commonly used in smelters to remove airborne pollutants from emissions, a decision that still bothers Sean O’Driscoll, president of the smelter’s union, Unifor local 2301.

“Having a monitoring program ongoing, with suitable human health mitigation plans required to be implemented at a later day, has folks feeling like they, their children and neighbours are being treated like guinea pigs,” O’Driscoll told DeSmog Canada.

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The B.C. Environmental Appeal Board previously told the union it had no right to challenge the environmental effects monitoring plan. But the court of appeals has now overruled that finding, kicking the original appeal — first launched in 2014 — back into action.

“This [appeal] opens a path for Unifor to challenge the mitigation plan on the basis that it is insufficient to protect workers and their families from growing levels of sulphur dioxide,” Jason Gratl, lawyer for local 2301, told DeSmog Canada.

O’Driscoll said the company was essentially given permission to subject workers and the community to a health risk to minimize costs.

“Our full expectations of the new Horgan NDP government is that they take another look at this issue and put the health of communities first,” O’Driscoll told DeSmog Canada. “Industry and stringent environmental standards need not be mutually exclusive.”

Gratl said the appeal will address whether or not it was appropriate for the government to approve the pollution increase without a clear plan to protect human health.

Governments increasingly approve projects with the explicit plan to work out details after the fact, Gratl said, adding pipeline approvals that come with more than 100 conditions are a prime example.

“What happened with Rio Tinto Alcan is the government said ‘let’s start making aluminum and we’ll figure out the environmental and social issues later.’ And they keep trying to push these issues further down the road.”

BC Using #Kitimat Smelter Workers as ‘Guinea Pigs’ for Air Pollution Monitoring, Union Says https://t.co/CcjzYKZcOE #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) November 6, 2017

Experts-for-Hire at Heart of Rio Tinto Alcan Concerns

Chris Tollefson, lawyer with the Pacific Centre for Environmental Law and Litigation, brought a previous challenge against the Rio Tinto Alcan on behalf of two Kitimat teachers: Lis Stannus and Emily Towes.

In 2015 Tollefson and his co-counsels provided an Environmental Appeal Board tribunal with evidence of alleged regulatory capture.

Regulators and statutory decision-makers within the Ministry of Environment were inappropriately close with Rio Tinto Alcan and relied heavily on science and analysis provided by the company’s hired scientists, Tollefson argued.

Tollefson said this case gives rise to the problems of “professional reliance” — the practice of using proponent-hired experts rather than independent analysts during environmental assessments.

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In August, the B.C. government ordered a review of the professional reliance system, which rose in popularity in B.C. under the tenure of the BC Liberals as cuts to the civil service were made.

Tollefson said the reopening of Unifor’s appeal will start a new discovery process that may provide crucial insight into what decisions and decision-makers played a role in the permits and adaptive management plan being approved.

“We’re concerned that the Ministry of Environment relied far too heavily on Rio Tinto Alcan’s experts, on Rio Tinto’s preferred approach and did not subject the environmental effects management plan to the kind of rigorous scrutiny that it deserved; and that it rushed its approval of that management plan in a way that compromised its scientific integrity,” Tollefson said.

‘We Feel Like An Experiment’

Tollefson also said the appeal provides new ground for his clients to relaunch their legal challenge.

Stannus said that is something she plans to pursue.

“Since this permit was approved, we have learned a lot more about the problems of professional reliance, a lot more about the health impacts of sulphur dioxide,” Stannus said.

Kitimat resident Lis Stannus poses for a photogaph with Premier John Horgan during his October visit to Kitimat. “I walked up to Horgan and I said, ‘I’m from Kitimat and I’m worried about sulphur dioxide pollution,’ ” Stannus recounted to DeSmog Canada. Photo: Province of B.C. via Flickr

“It’s a little shocking to me that this is allowed to proceed. We feel like an experiment and I don’t recall ever giving consent to this experiment.”

Stannus said her ears perk up whenever she hears the new government criticize the practice of professional reliance.

“But they never bring Rio Tinto Alcan up,” Stannus told DeSmog Canada. “They never mention the fact that the project’s studies were bought and paid for by Rio Tinto.”

Kitimat Residents Try to Raise Concerns with NDP Government

Stannus said she sought out the premier on his last visit to the area.

Stannus and a community organization she belongs to, the Kitimat-Terrace Clean Air Coalition, have sent three letters to B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman, expressing their fears that Rio Tinto Alcan’s permit to increase sulphur dioxide emissions is a threat to their health. The group has repeatedly asked for meetings with the minister, Stannus said.

“I asked [the Premier] why they won’t meet with us and he said it is because they have only been in power for 100 days,” she said.

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In a statement to DeSmog Canada, Minister Heyman said he can “empathize with those who have concerns about air quality in their community.”

“I want to assure everyone that we will restore public confidence in government’s ability to protect our water, land and air,” Heyman said.

He added the environmental effects monitoring plan is currently under appeal with the Environmental Appeal Board.

“As such it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.”

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Lis Stannus remembers how serious the problem of acid rain was in Ontario when she lived on a farm near Lake Huron as a child. So when Rio Tinto Alcan informed Kitimat residents of its plans to increase sulphur dioxide pollution — a key contributor to acid rain —she couldn’t understand why no one fought back.

“Nobody was speaking out,” Stannus said, “and I found it amazing that those people who should have been speaking out weren’t.”

Rio Tinto Alcan received a permit from the B.C. government in 2013 that allowed the company to increase production of aluminum at its smelter in Kitimat, leading to a 56 per cent increase in sulphur dioxide emissions. Currently, both the government and Rio Tinto Alcan are defending that permit in front of a tribunal acting for the B.C. Environmental Appeals Board in Kitimat.

Rio Tinto Alcan says its ‘modernization’ of the smelter is now 94 per cent complete although the tribunal has the power to rescind the province’s permit, putting the immediate future of the plant in question.

The Muzzle Effect: Small Town, Big Company

Stannus said when she first heard about the emissions increase she contacted the city, the Kitimat health authority and local environmental groups to push back against the company’s plans, to no avail.

But it didn’t take long for Stannus to realize “there was a lot of muzzling” going on, she said. “We are all muzzled here.”

Part of the problem, Stannus said, is that the aluminum plant is a major job provider for Kitimat.

“Without Alcan, Kitimat would be nothing,” she said. “Kitimat literally wouldn’t be here.”

Alcan, now owned by multi-national mining magnate Rio Tinto, used to be fondly referred to as “Uncle Al” by Kitimat residents.

The company created Kitimat as an artificial township in the 1950s to support a growing workforce. Although the planned city was originally created with 150,000 residents in mind, its current population is between 8,000 and 9,000 — about 1,400 of which rely on the smelter for employment.

“It’s like nobody would speak out if they worked for Rio Tinto Alcan,” she said. “You just wouldn’t speak up.”

Stannus said she recently spoke to an employee of Rio Tinto Alcan who said he was reprimanded by company officials for posting about sulphur dioxide emissions on his Facebook page.

Morris Amos from the Haisla First Nation said his band council and Rio Tinto Alcan entered into a $22 million “Legacy Agreement” that acts as a gag order on Haisla officials.

“Part of the language of the agreement, which is really more of a contract, includes a clause that talks about the Haisla Nation never coming forward to question anything that Alcan does as long as the agreement is in effect,” he said.

The Legacy Agreement, signed in 2010, guarantees employment, business opportunities and a trust fund for the Haisla Nation as an outcome of Rio Tinto Alcan’s modernization project.

Amos, brother of former elected Haisla chief Gerald Amos, said the agreement means his nation can’t officially question the increase of Rio Tinto Alcan’s sulphur dioxide emissions.

“I take that as a muzzling clause,” he said. “It remains to be seen if that has any force or effect legally — it hasn’t been challenged yet.”

Amos says the Legacy Agreement explains why the Haisla Nation hasn’t played a role in fighting for pollution reductions.

The Legacy Agreement, “is part of the reason why there’s no band council presence in this Environmental Appeals Board hearing,” he said.

Amos said he can speak out about the Legacy Agreement and Rio Tinto Alcan’s sulphur dioxide emissions because he’s not a part of the band council.

“I work for a heredity chief, so that’s another thing altogether.”

Rio Tinto Alcan’s Permit to Pollute

B.C. approved a permit in April 2013 that granted Rio Tinto Alcan the right to increase its sulphur dioxide emissions by 56 per cent.

Stannus, along with fellow Kitimat resident Emily Toews, is appealing that permit approval in the Environmental Appeals Board hearing, arguing the increase in sulphur dioxide emissions unnecessarily threatens human health.

“I was really mad,” Stannus said. “Because it seemed like an infringement of our rights and it went against everything the government told us we were working towards: reducing emissions, keeping the air clean.”

Stannus realized she needed to speak out. “ I thought, ‘I can do it. I don’t have anything to lose.’”

Pollution Reduction Measures Not Required by Province

Rio Tinto Alcan’s ability to reduce its sulphur dioxide emissions is central to the appeal hearings.

Giving testimony before the appeal panel, Ian Sharpe, director of environmental protection with the B.C. Ministry of Environment, said before granting the permit he required evidence Rio Tinto Alcan “could and would” install pollution reduction technology called scrubbers “should there be a need to have emissions lower than what they applied for.”

But rather than require the company to install scrubbers, which would prevent the increase of sulphur dioxide emissions, the province granted Rio Tinto Alcan a permit to increase its emissions for an indefinite amount of time.

Sharpe told the panel he decided not to impose sulphur dioxide limits on Rio Tinto Alcan because both B.C. and the federal government are considering updating their own standards in coming years.

Stannus said she doesn’t understand why the province will allow emissions to go up if the company has already prepared for the installation of scrubbers.

“I learned there was a place put at the plant for wet scrubbers. That was a backup plan,” she said. “I thought, ‘if scrubbers aren’t feasible, why would they do that?’”

Stannus thinks it comes down to penny pinching. Rio Tinto Alcan initially announced its modernization project would cost just over $2 billion but that number has recently skyrocketed to nearly $5 billion.

The Environmental Appeal Board hearings are currently taking place in Kitimat and are now in their third week. The panel could rescind Rio Tinto Alcan’s permit or order the company to install scrubbers.

Image Credit: Lis Stannus courtesy of Doug Keech.

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