Inco, Falconbridge under pressure on emissions
Date: 10-Sep-01
Country: CANADA
Author: Lesley Wroughton
Provincial Environment Minister Elizabeth Witmer said she will issue notices of intent to order both companies, the western world's two top nickel producers, to reduce their emissions of sulfur dioxide - a colorless gas with a pungent smell - and ensure they were more accountable to the people of Sudbury, about 400 km (248 miles) north of Toronto. About 157,000 people live in the Sudbury area.
Exposure to high concentrations of sulfur dioxide causes respiratory problems and aggravates existing lung and heart diseases, the provincial government said.
"This would be one of the most significant steps in 23 years to reduce sulfur dioxide concentrations in Sudbury's air," Witmer said in a statement. "This would mean cleaner, healthier air for the people of Sudbury."
She said the companies will have to reduce sulfur dioxide ground level concentrations by 32 percent by April 2002 and cut limits on annual emissions by 34 percent by 2006.
Both companies will also be required to have a public notification system for unfavorable air quality in place by the end of the month, and report annually on their progress.
But both Inco and Falconbridge said they had been operating below permitted levels for some time, and the announcement was not a surprise.
Falconbridge spokeswoman Marguerite Manshreck-Head said the company had reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide each year from 1980. Last year sulfur dioxide discharges at the Sudbury smelter were 27.7 kilotonnes, down 23 percent from 1999 levels. The permitted limit was 100 kilotonnes a year.
In efforts to further reduce emissions, she said a program of pyrrhotite (high sulfur mineral) rejection in milling and higher degrees of concentrate roasting was in place at Sudbury, where 1999 nickel in matte output was 20,173 tonnes.
Alan Stubbs, spokesman for Inco, said the company had been operating below its limit of 265 kilotonnes of sulfur dioxide a year. Under the new draft control order, that would be reduced to 175 kilotonnes by 2006, he said.
Inco produced a total of 447 million pounds of nickel in 2000, of which 215 million pounds was from Sudbury.
"We have been in discussions with the government for quite some time and we have been operating under their control level for quite some time so this is not a surprise nor is it an uncommon way for us to operate up there," Stubbs told Reuters.
The company said in a statement it had proposed a C$100 million investment in technology that would further reduce sulfur dioxide discharge at Sudbury by 34 percent by 2006.
It said the fluid bed roaster technology would also decrease total metal emissions of nickel, copper, arsenic and lead by 80 to 100 tonnes a year in Sudbury. At that level the smelter will have cut total metal emissions by 80 percent since it began the reduction program in 1988, it said.
John Bennett, director of atmosphere and energy issues for environmental activist group Sierra Club of Canada, said the government's announcement was a "minor improvement".
"This is a non-announcement announcement. It doesn't address the real source that is growing which is Ontario Power Generation," Bennett said, referring to the provincial energy distributor, which runs coal-fired power plants in Ontario.
"This is part of the Ontario government's public relations campaign around air pollution where they make announcements that sound significant but when you look closer at the details, that's where they fall down. Probably these levels have already been reached by Falconbridge and Inco for some time."
