It was just another evening in Sarnia, February 2017, when the apocalyptic flaring began.

Without warning, enormous flames engulfed Imperial Oil’s petrochemical refinery, spewing plumes of smoke into the air. Nearby houses in Aamjiwnaang First Nation and south Sarnia shook and windows rattled. A foul odour overwhelmed the area.

For the next five hours, the night sky was aglow with vivid oranges and yellows. A grass fire broke out on a nearby lot.

By 11:30 pm, the incident had formally concluded. But flaring continued for the next 10 days.

Since that week and a half of chaos back in 2017, local community members who live near the refinery in Sarnia’s notorious “Chemical Valley” have been pushing for answers from the province and for Imperial Oil to be held accountable for potentially exposing them to toxic chemicals.

Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change recently released a preliminary incident report after being prompted by an application from Aamjiwnaang First Nation member Vanessa Gray and Ecojustice scientist Elaine MacDonald back in October.

The ministry referred the investigation to its enforcement branch to determine if charges are warranted — a process that could take years.

Experts say it’s an important first step for residents who are surrounded by Chemical Valley’s 57 industrial polluters and often feel their serious environmental concerns are ignored.

“What stood out to us this time was the severity of the event and also not seeing much in the way of follow-up by the ministry,” said Kaitlyn Mitchell, lawyer at Ecojustice.

“We started talking to people about it, because we thought ‘well, if it looked and sounded that big then maybe it had some impacts on people, but that’s not really coming through in any of the ministry’s or company’s updates.’”

Over 500 incident reports filed in Sarnia region in only two years

Sarnia’s Chemical Valley is one of the most notorious spots in Canada when it comes to local environmental impacts.

Around 40 per cent of the country’s petrochemical industry is located in the 25 square kilometre region, producing everything from gasoline, to fertilizers, to plastics.

Imperial Oil’s facility can refine up to 120,000 barrels of crude oil a day as well as produce products like polyethylene and chemical solvents. It’s only one of the nearly 60 industrial facilities in the area.

In 2012 the World Health Organization awarded Chemical Valley with the top spot for most polluted air in Canada.

Such toxic pollutants can include sulphur dioxide and benzene, which can cause serious respiratory and cardiovascular impacts as well as having links to cancer.

A recent collaborative investigation by Global News, the Toronto Star, the National Observer and a number of journalism schools found that over 500 incident reports had been filed in 2014 and 2015 for spills and leaks in the Sarnia area: yet only one public warning had been issued through the municipality’s alert system.

With that said, flaring — used to prevent the dangerous buildup of gas by combusting it as an alternative to releasing it straight into the air as methane — is a routine process in the area and usually doesn’t become an “incident” (although it does result in significant air pollution, including volatile organic compounds, soot and sulphur dioxide).

The uncontrolled flaring that caused the 10-day incident in February 2017 resulted from an equipment malfunction.

But according to the application for investigation filed by Gray and MacDonald, that was the 10th malfunction-related flaring incident at Imperial Oil’s facility since January 2014.

Mitchell said that while the government indicated it was looking into the incident prior to the application for investigation, it became clear that they weren’t aware of many of the impacts on the surrounding community.

“What we would say is that when there’s a massive flaring event, you should not assume unless otherwise told that there were no off-site impacts and community members were not adversely impacted,” she said.

“You should be proactively reaching out. If the flames were big enough to be rattling people’s houses, then I would like to see the ministry knocking on people’s doors and asking them if they did have any sort of impacts or if they’d like to talk to the ministry about the flaring event.”

Warning sirens only went off for a few seconds during flaring

Sarnia has 15 municipal sirens to warn of chemical spills and leaks, as well as a public alert system that uses phone calls, email and text messages.

But when the Imperial Oil flaring incident happened, sirens only sounded for a few seconds.

Many members of the surrounding community, including Aamjiwnaang First Nation, were left without any knowledge of what was happening.

The application for investigation detailed how many attempts were made to contact both the provincial ministry and Imperial Oil to find out details, but to no avail: “The combined effect of these impacts was to cause residents significant fear, as they did not know whether their health and safety was in danger.”

This confusion was aggravated by the province’s failure to conduct any air monitoring during the flaring incident. That left Imperial Oil to conduct monitoring.

“They just went out with these handheld monitors to try to measure levels around the facility,” MacDonald told DeSmog Canada. “The handheld monitors were nowhere near sensitive enough to actually determine whether any air standards were being violated.”

In the following days, Imperial Oil brought in consultants to conduct sampling with more sensitive equipment: but that monitoring didn’t occur downwind or include testing for sulphur dioxide.

While increases in sulphur dioxide levels were noticed on several nearby stations, many of the monitors in the Sarnia region were operated by industry and didn’t provide public information.

“At the time this happened, we had no information on what the monitoring stations were picking up,” MacDonald said. “If it would happen again now, at least we’d be able to look at those air monitoring stations as they’re finally online.”

This means that nobody has firm evidence of the type or quantity of toxic pollution that was emitted during the incident.

In a press release issued on March 1, 2017, Imperial Oil stated: “The disruption Imperial has experienced is not an emergency situation for the community.”

Vanessa Gray, a member of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and co-applicant in the call for investigation, said in an interview with DeSmog Canada that “even the people who are investigating this incident are very dismissive of the adverse effects of personal experiences in the community.

“I feel like that’s the general feeling when Indigenous community members talk to the ministry: they’re very dismissive to our concerns,” she said. “If they’re not looking out for our best interests, then who is?”

‘This happens as part of daily life’

There have been some instances of progress for Chemical Valley’s current approach to air pollution.

In late March, the province of Ontario adopted a new sulphur dioxide standard which reduces the maximum amount a facility can emit within a single hour by almost seven times. The ministry also recently clarified its rules on the tracking of flaring by industry, which has long been accused of being overly ambiguous.

But there’s still much to be done.

The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario identified a series of problem areas in its 2017 report, which devoted an entire section to air pollution in Aamjiwnaang. They include the ministry’s ignoring of cumulative effects of emissions (instead only regulating facilities on an individual basis), an over-reliance on self-reporting by industry, a lack of monitoring equipment and an inadequate approach to warnings and communications.

Onlookers suggest government must also reconfigure its relationship with a community of residents who have been effectively forced to acclimatize to significant air pollution as a way of life.

“The thing that struck me when I was speaking to people was this is not a stand-alone incident,” Mitchell said.

“This happens as part of daily life, in some ways — of course, it doesn’t happen every day but it happens frequently enough that it’s not as alarming or doesn’t seem as surprising to people as it would in other Canadian communities.”

Gray agreed: “It’s not enough that Indigenous activists from Aamjiwnaang have been speaking out against the amount of pollution we’ve been experiencing my whole life. There are reasons that are piling on that there should be more action than there is. But what we’re seeing in Sarnia is they continue to expand. It’s not slowing down. Industry is still proud of what they’re doing.”

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Ontarians concerned about Enbridge's plans to ship tar sands bitumen through the 37-year old Line 9 pipeline will hold a rally in Sarnia on May 21st.

Aamjiwnaang + Sarnia Against Pipelines (ASAP) are the organizers of the event. ASAP is a group made up of members of Aamjiwnaang First Nation in Sarnia and residents of southwestern Ontario.

Community members of Aamjiwnaang will begin the rally with a water ceremony at Sarnia's town hall followed by a march through downtown Sarnia.

Mere minutes away oil executives, bankers, engineers, politicians, and labour group leaders will be sitting down for day one of the industry-sponsored Bitumen-Adding Value: Canada's National Opportunity conference at Sarnia’s Best Western Guildwood Inn.

“Sites like the Bitumen – Adding Value Conference are key players in the glorification of industrial expansion and fossil fuel dependency and need to be challenged when they happen and where they happen,” says Wolf Chrapko, who was born and raised in Sarnia and is the co-founder of the Guelph Anti-Pipeline Action Group.

Ontario's Oil Country

The first commercial oil well in North America was established in Oil Springs less than fifty kilometers south of Sarnia in 1858. The Sarnia-Lambton County area also known as “Chemical Valley” is the largest oil refinery centre in Canada and home to 40% of Canada's chemical industry.

The two-day ‘bitumen’ conference claims it will “provide a vision of Canada as a sustainable energy superpower.” Processing bitumen in Canada will be the focus of the conference. Most of Alberta's bitumen is exported to the US.

Conference participants include the mayor of Sarnia, and members of the Ontario and Alberta governments. Major tar sands industry players such as Suncor, Imperial Oil and Enbridge are some of the sponsors.

Imperial Oil’s (Exxon's Canadian subsidiary) refinery in Sarnia is the only refinery in eastern Canada capable of refining bitumen. A major cash injection is required for a refinery to be outfitted to process the heavy bitumen.

Chemical Valley has the worst air quality in Canada

The community of eight hundred Aamjiwnaang First Nation members is a few kilometers south of Sarnia. They are surrounded by 62 industrial facilities on either side of the border (Sarnia shares a border with Michigan).

“It is the cumulative impact of emissions from these 62 facilities on both sides of the border that has made the Sarnia area Ontario’s worst air pollution hotspot,” concluded the Canadian legal group Ecojustice in a 2007 report.

The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2011 found Sarnia had the worst air quality in Canada. A hydrogen sulfide leak from Shell’s refinery last January resulted in Aamjiwnaang community members suffering from headaches and nausea.

Ecojustice is representing two members of Aamjiwnaang – Ron Plain and Ada Lockridge – in a lawsuit against Ontario’s Ministry of Environment (MOE) over cumulative impacts of pollution from Chemical Valley’s industrial facilities.

The plaintiffs argue the MOE’s approval of pollution levels in Sarnia and Aamjiwnaang is a violation for their human rights to life, liberty, equality and security to the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A court hearing is expected in 2014.

“Unfortunately Canadian courts have not yet recognized a right to clean air or clean water under Canadian law,” says Justin Duncan who heads Ecojustice’s Chemical Valley Charter Challenge against the MOE.

“We hope this case can set a precedent not just for people living in Sarnia but for all Canadians that we have a legal right to live in a healthy environment,” Duncan told DeSmog.

Sarnia – Bitumen's Gateway to Eastern Canada

If the tar sands are “Canada’s Mordor” as some have suggested, Mordor’s reach in Canada ends in Sarnia. The shipment of bitumen in Canada via pipeline does not go any further than Sarnia. Enbridge’s Line 9 may change this.

In recent years Line 9 has carried a small amount of conventional crude oil from Montreal to Sarnia. Enbridge is seeking approval from the National Energy Board (NEB) – Canada’s independent energy regulator – to reverse the flow of Line 9 and have the pipeline carry “heavy crude” such as bitumen for the first time.

Concerns have been raised in Ontario and Quebec about the potential for a Line 9 pipeline rupture similar to Enbridge’s Kalamazoo spill in Michigan. Line 9 crosses major waterways leading to Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. In March, the NEB found 117 of Enbridge’s 125 pipeline pumping stations did not meet safety standards.

A group of forty people on May 6th temporarily shut down a highway in Ontario to protest the federal government restricting public participation in the final decision on Line 9. On May 14th, groups in Quebec demanded their government conduct an exhaustive and comprehensive review on the potential impacts of the Line 9 project. 

“It's Ontario's turn to really challenge Tar Sands-based industrial expansion,” Chrapko told DeSmog.

Perhaps Sarnia, the place of Canada’s first oil well and bitumen’s only entry point to eastern Canada, is a fitting place for this challenge to begin in earnest.

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On Friday, January 11, while Kim Henry was marching in Ottawa as part of the Idle No More Global Day of Action, the air surrounding her home was turning sour. A leak at the nearby Shell Corunna Refinery filled the Aamjiwnaang First Nation community with the smell of rotten eggs, a typical indicator of the presence of hydrogen sulfide.

Henry is the academic principal of the kindergarten at Aamjiwnaang Binoojiinyag Kino Maagewgamgoons, a daycare that sits in a green crescent not far from the St. Clair River, which separates Canada from Michigan. This area, stretching south from Sarnia toward Lake Eerie has come to be called the Chemical Valley for its 62 nearby large industrial facilities (on both the Canadian and American side of the boarder). Those plants released 131 million kilograms of pollutants in 2005 alone, according to a report from Ontario’s Ecojustice, a charitable organization that advocates for environmental human rights. 

At Henry’s daycare, daily alarm tests from the three nearby petrochemical plants serve as a reminder that life in the Chemical Valley means being aware from a very young age that disaster could strike any moment.

“It can get stressful for the kids sometimes,” she says. “Even though some of them are really little, they know that if they're not eating lunch then that's not a normal alarm.”

On January 11, there was no alarm, although the daycare’s staff and neighbours detected the strange scent around 11:40 am.

Ada Lockridge, a community activist who helped to found the Aamjiwnaang Environment Committee, says her neighbour described the smell as a “number 8 or number 9 on the stink scale.” The odour, “hit you in the face, made you fall down. It was a strong odour of gas, like you were working in the gas station.”

Corunna’s plant manager, Michele Harradence, told the Sarnia Observer that the leak was discovered around 1:45 pm. Daycare workers reported the smell to the Ontario Ministry of the Environment before 2 pm but official word that there was a shelter-in-place – an order to go indoors and shut off all air intake – did not reach the daycare until 3:30 pm, after the shelter-in-place had been called off.

Henry says that residents throughout the neighbourhood were already suffering from headaches. “Later on that night some people had taken their children to the emergency because of headaches and a little bit of nauseousness. Some people were saying that their skin was really irritated and they had almost hive-like skin irritation.”

Furnaces in the daycare had to be shut off over the weekend, and when they were turned back on Monday, the air that lingered in the ducts was still pungent with aftereffects of the leak.

At a heated community meeting on Tuesday, January 15, Shell announced that the problem had involved sour water containing mercaptan – a class of organic chemicals used in refining oil – and benzene from their flare system. They said that the leak was contained to the plant. Ontario Ministry of the Environment spokesperson Kate Jordan later confirmed the presence of hydrogen sulfide, which would account for the rotten egg smell.

Jordan says that officials performed an air quality check after the incident and found that pollutant levels “didn't show any areas of concern.” They expect a full plain language report from Shell within the next week, which the company has promised to share with the daycare.

To Henry and her colleagues, the delay between the leak and the official announcement put the children of the community at unacceptable risk. “They have a right to justice and protection and we feel like that was violated.”

Inspired by her experience in Ottawa, Henry and daycare supervisor Muriel Joseph-Plain decided they would hold a rally of their own. The teachers in the kindergarten prepared their students with lessons that drew on Doctor Seuss’ the Lorax and traditional First Nations teachings about the sanctity of air, water and land. On Wednesday, January 16, about 100 members of the community marched from the daycare carrying signs that called for greater respect of children’s right to clean air.

This is not the first time the people of Aamjiwnaang have stood up for themselves. In 2008, they formed a bucket brigade to test their own air quality and discovered high levels of chloromethane, benzene, chlorobenzene, ethylbenzene and isoprene.

In 2010, with the help of Ecojustice, Lockridge and her former neighbour Ron Plain filed a challenge alleging that the Ontario Ministry of Environment’s ongoing approval of pollution in Sarnia violates their basic human rights under sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Even if the community is unable to identify the specific contaminants from the leak, they may still have a case against Shell, according to Dr Elaine MacDonald, an environmental engineer who works with Ecojustice. Extremely strong odours such as those created by mercaptan and hydrogen sulfide are also considered a contaminant under Ontario law.

“We're hoping that this type of thing won't go unnoticed and that there'll be some enforcement action,” says MacDonald. “Even if this was an accident, it doesn't matter. There needs to be something to make sure that this doesn't happen again.”

MacDonald said that First Nations and poor communities are often treated as sacrifices to the petrochemical industry and this is undoubtedly the case for the Aamjiwnaang community.

“They've been there for hundreds and hundreds of years and these plants all popped up around their reserve,” she says. “The proximity of the plant to the reserve is quite stunning. They share property lines, basically. You'll have a refinery property line that backs on the very property of homes and community facilities like community schools, more so than you'll see in most places.”

Back at Aamjiwnaang Binoojiinyag Kino Maagewgamgoons, Shell has agreed to clean the daycare’s ventilation system and playground in light of the leak. But Henry believes that even this small concession would not have happened if the community hadn’t gathered together to demand a response.

“We need to have a better line of communication,” she says. “They need to contact us right away if there’s a shelter-in-place or any kind of emergency. They need to let us know sooner.”

Image Credit: From Ecojustice's Exposing Canada's Chemical Valley: An Investigation of Cumulative Air Pollution Emissions in the Sarnia, Ontario and Shell Canada.

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