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Inco ranked top polluter in province

BY BILL BRADLEY [email protected] Sudbury?s two mining majors dominated the worst polluters list in Ontario this week.
BY BILL BRADLEY

Sudbury?s two mining majors dominated the worst polluters list in Ontario this week.

Inco?s Copper Cliff smelter complex ranked as the worst air polluter in Ontario, and second worst in Canada, according to a news release Wednesday from the Toronto- based environmental watchdogs Canadian Environmental Law Association and Environmental Defense.

The data released in the news release was cited from the National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) of Environment Canada.

It showed Inco released 169,279,714 kilograms of air pollutants in 2003. The second worst polluter was the coal fired Nanticoke Generating Station.

It released 138,474,799 kg of air pollutants. Falconbridge ranked fourth, emitting 31,158,481 kg from its smelter complex.

?Companies in Ontario emitted more than 888 million kilograms of air pollution in 2003, most of it associated with respiratory illnesses such as asthma and bronchitis,? stated the release.

?We don?t dispute those emissions figures since we provide those numbers to the federal government,? said Cory McPhee, spokesperson for Inco.

?We?re not sitting on our hands though. Since the 1980s, we have spent close to $1 billion on pollution abatement. For example, we capture SO2 emissions that would have gone up the stack and redirect it to our acid plant where we make marketable products. Some years we even make a profit on pollution prevention.?

Currently Inco is in the middle of a new pollution abatement program, targetting another aspect of the smelter operation, the fluid bed roaster furnaces.
McPhee said Inco is envisioning further cuts, as much as 75 percent from current levels by 2015.

?We are not sure how we will do it but we as a company are committed to that goal because we are finding what enhances the bottom line for the environment also is good for our business bottom line,? he said.

Ian Hamilton, spokesperson for Falconbridge, said his company is working on improving their environmental performance at their Sudbury smelter.

?Through the 1990s we invested $125 million to modernize the smelter complex. That increased our production and we are also finding that in 2004, our emissions were one-third of what we are allowed to emit. In fact, our 2004 numbers were not far off the targets we are hoping to get to by 2015.?

For more information on pollution, visit www.PollutionWatch.org.


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