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Notes for remarks

by

The Honourable Laurel Broten
Minister of the Environment

Workshop on Acid Rain
“Working Together to Fight Acid Rain”

Collège Boréal Conference Centre
Sudbury, ON
Friday, February 24, 2006

(Check against delivery)

Good morning, everyone.

And thanks, Bill for that very kind introduction. (Minister introduced by Inco Limited’s William A. Napier – Vice-President, Environment and Health.)

I am delighted to be here this morning. I’m also pleased to bring greetings and best wishes from Premier Dalton McGuinty and my colleagues at Queen’s Park.

I want to welcome all of you to this workshop, and to thank you for your ongoing efforts to address the tremendous challenge of acid rain.

Je vous souhaite à tous et à toutes la bienvenue ici aujourd’hui, et je voudrais vous remercier des efforts continus que vous déployez pour lutter contre les pluies acides.

Only a generation ago, people did not generally think about Sudbury in relation to environmental protection.

In fact, the city had the rather unfortunate reputation of being one of the most heavily polluted industrial communities in North America.

But in recent years, I’m pleased to see that the city – with help from governments at all levels, industrial partners like INCO and many other stakeholders – has turned things around.

The City of Greater Sudbury today is a very beautiful and vibrant community, even when it’s under a foot of snow.

I’ve been fortunate to meet many of the local stakeholders who’ve worked so hard over the years to remediate the local environment. They know first-hand about the harmful effects of acid rain and snow – and the long challenge of reversing the damage.

From what I’ve seen, I can honestly say that the remediation work being done here is a world-class example of co-operation at all levels – and a great model for other communities to follow.

The transformation of this community – from only 25 or 30 years ago – is simply amazing. But as you know, it’s been a long road back. And I’m very pleased that, over the years, the Ministry of the Environment has traveled that road with you.

Here’s one example of how far we have come. When our government first announced its Five-Point Plan to cut emissions of toxic and smog causing pollutants, the person we shared the stage with that day was your chairman and CEO, Scott Hand.

I believe that we could not have reached such a partnership a few decades ago. It shows that both government and industry have come a long way in thinking about how we build partnerships and how the environment and the economy are interlinked.

For three decades, my ministry has been working with our partners to further our scientific knowledge about acid rain, while focusing on the need for cleaner air and reduced environmental impacts of acid deposition.

We’ve had some powerful allies in this struggle – including good science, timely regulatory intervention and community partners who were committed to making a difference.

Back in the 1980s, the Government of Ontario and the base metals sector negotiated significant reductions in sulphur dioxide emissions to reduce the overall environmental impact.

In the lead-up to the Countdown Acid Rain Program, for example, we set caps for sulphur dioxide emissions from INCO and other large emitters in this area.

In the late 1990s, when improved science and better modeling showed us that further reductions were needed, we negotiated even lower emission levels with major polluters.

As you know, those negotiations led to INCO’s commitment to reducing its SO2 emissions to 175 kilotonnes by 2007 – and to achieving even greater reductions by 2015.

Today we have a 2015 target for INCO at 66 kilotonnes a year. That represents a total reduction of 75 per cent from the Countdown Acid Rain Cap.

When INCO commissions its latest sulphur dioxide control system, I understand that its operations here in Sudbury will successfully meet its 2007 cap.

The new control system will also reduce the amount of dust and metals emitted from the stack. And that will further improve air and environmental quality, here in Sudbury and in the surrounding area.

That is tremendous progress, and I want to take this opportunity to thank our INCO partners for their hard work – and for investing in a healthier future for this community.

Many of the lessons we have learned in the long campaign against acid rain are now helping us to engage our U.S. neighbours on an equally pressing issue – the very serious problem of transboundary air pollution.

Last week, our government presented a formal submission on this issue to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is proposing rule changes that would be damaging to Ontario’s environment, economy and people.

The biggest culprits are the almost 700 electrical generating units in coal-fired plants lying upwind from Ontario in the US Midwest, many of which have been running for 50 years or more with virtually no modern pollution control equipment, and continue to operate with impunity.

The EPA’s rule changes would further reduce the agency’s ability to force these coal fired units to clean up.

Ontario’s submission calls on our American neighbours – and on the EPA in particular – to change their course, abandon the proposed rule changes, and begin working in earnest with Ontario and other partners to clean up their act.

INCO and other Ontario businesses are proving that you can clean up and be competitive. 1950s thinking won’t get you very far in today’s business world, and neither should 1950s standards.

The great lessons in cooperation learned in Sudbury have helped me with another major government initiative.

One of the reasons I’m here in Sudbury this week is to talk to people about Ontario’s proposed new Clean Water Act – and the need to put prevention first to ensure the safety of our drinking water.

The proposed legislation is the most recent example of the McGuinty government’s commitment to protecting people’s health – and to maintaining the outstanding quality of life that Ontarians enjoy.

The Act has a strong local focus. We believe that local authorities are in the best position to determine what source water protection measures are needed, how best to carry them out, and what agencies should take the lead in these efforts.

Greater Sudbury is a complex mix of urban and rural communities, where people depend on both groundwater and surface water. And the city’s water supply is rather unique.

For example, roughly 10 per cent of Sudbury residents rely on privately owned surface water drinking systems, instead of the private wells that are much more common in other parts of the province.

Ramsey Lake is a source of drinking water for thousands of people on both municipal and private systems. It has also been the unfortunate recipient in the past of air and water pollution from residential and industrial sources.

Sudbury learned in time that we cannot keep contaminating the water we depend on for our lives and our livelihood. By banding together, this community has pulled back from the brink.

This is a great success story, but it reminds us why prevention is the better option.

The Clean Water Act is designed to help people in Sudbury and other communities develop an effective, locally designed plan that will protect their water sources from source to tap.

And that approach reflects our government’s most fundamental beliefs about drinking water, and our shared responsibilities for protecting it.

In the future, we can look to better science and technology to help us achieve even further reductions in acid rain, and to mitigate its harmful effects.

Collaborative efforts like this help give us a better understanding of how the science of acid rain is evolving, and how the problem continues to affect our environment over the longer term.

Ces efforts communs nous aident à mieux comprendre la manière dont évolue la science de la pluie acide, et comment ce problème continue d’affecter notre environnement à long terme.
The papers being presented here represent the latest thinking on acid rain – the most recent studies from what is probably the largest real-time acid rain laboratory in the world.

I know that you have a full agenda today. So I’d like to conclude my remarks by thanking you once again for inviting me to be with you, and by offering you my very best wishes for a productive and informative meeting.

Thank you.

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