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Environment minister asks for new review of whether Northern Pulp plan should go before feds

Canada’s environment minister Catherine McKenna has requested a new recommendation of whether Northern Pulp’s plan for a new effluent treatment plant should undergo a federal environmental assessment.

According to The Chronicle-Herald, McKenna appealed to the Canada Environmental Assessment Agency after new legislation passed at the end of August that requires extra consideration of a project’s impact on Indigenous people.

The project is currently undergoing a provincial environmental assessment, and Northern Pulp is expected to submit additional focus report documents to the government of Nova Scotia by the end of September.

McKenna had previously requested a recommendation of whether the plan should be reviewed by the federal government, but according to documents obtained by The Chronicle-Herald, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency said in March that no such review would take place.

Northern Pulp, owned by Paper Excellence, has been ordered by the province of Nova Scotia to remove its effluent treatment pipe from its current location, which runs near the Pictou Landing First Nation and into Boat Harbour, by January 2020.

The mill has been at odds with the local community for months over its proposed new plan, which would see treated effluent rerouted and then piped further away into Northumberland Strait.

Read The Chronicle-Herald‘s full story.