Rutland Herald

OMYA'S designs on Ontario water raise concerns

July 23, 2001
By CARRIE BUCHANAN Herald Correspondent


PERTH, ONTARIO - An environmental hearing in this picturesque Canadian town of 6,000 threatens expansion plans by OMYA Inc.

Eight opponents representing residents, second-home owners and environmentalists, as well as a national group concerned about water exports, are fighting the company's plan to remove up to a million gallons of water a day by 2004 from the Tay River, which runs through Perth and connects to 46 nearby lakes.

The Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal, which began a hearing into the company's controversial water-taking permit on June 25, heard from a range of scientists, government officials and residents experiencing problems with OMYA's existing operations.

The hearing, which adjourned July 11, is expected to resume in the fall but no date has been set.

The Canadian subsidiary is owned by OMYA AG (formerly Pluess-Staufer) the same Swiss multinational that owns OMYA Inc. in Vermont.

The company operates a quarry in Tatlock, Ontario, about 60 miles southwest of Ottawa, and a processing operation in nearby Perth. Calcium carbonate trucked 30 miles from the quarry is crushed at the plant for use in a variety of products, from paint to toothpaste.

Last August, concern spread through the Perth area when OMYA was granted a permit that would ultimately allow it to remove a million gallons of water a day from the tiny, struggling Tay, a river that goes dry in spots during periods of drought. It's the source of Perth's drinking water and lifeblood of a network of lakes and cottages in a watershed covering 350 square miles.

OMYA plans to mix most of the river water with ground calcium carbonate in a slurry shipped all over North America in rail cars and tanker trucks to be used in paper-making. OMYA has made this product for years using groundwater. But expansion requires more water: the equivalent of about two Olympic-size swimming pools every day.

Expansion is something OMYA is known for. In the past few years it has invested $500 million into its Perth plant, with more to come if this permit, and another issued by the federal government, are approved. Trucks now run day and night - an estimated 150 per 24-hour period, according to one resident along the route - between the Tatlock quarry and the Perth plant. They create noise, dust and sleep disturbances and have lowered property values, testified Lanark resident Ken Potter.

OMYA's next Perth expansion won't happen without a fight, however.

Ontario's Environmental Review Tribunal granted the current appeal on both environmental and trade issues related to the water-taking permit granted last August to OMYA.

It's the prospect that OMYA would be exporting water out of the watershed, even the country, that has many people alarmed about the permit, says Steven Shrybman, lawyer for the Council of Canadians, a national organization with a particular interest in international trade issues. The council got involved in the appeal because it involves water exports, Shrybman said.

"This case is a landmark," said Shrybman, who has practiced environmental law for more than a decade. It's the first time a provincial tribunal has considered the links between international trade agreements and water exports, he said. Because Canada's 10 provinces have jurisdiction over water and trade within their boundaries, he said that's an important step forward in the council's fight to protect Canada's water resources.

"The 20th century was about oil and gas, and the 21st century is about water," Shrybman said. "It's what many say the wars of the next 100 years will be fought over. So I think that's the context. I think we're on the cusp."

Canadians worry about the loss of their water resources and, as a consequence, Ontario and other provinces, plus the federal government, have a formal agreement banning exports of large amounts of water from any major watershed, several witnesses told the hearing. Most of the provinces have passed laws to enforce it, including Ontario, senior federal and provincial officials told the hearing.

But the OMYA shipments are exempt because the water is contained in a "product" and not "in its natural state," trade lawyer Stephen de Boer, who works for the Ontario government, testified.

Indeed, a range of witnesses on both sides of the issue agreed on this point. OMYA's shipments don't appear to be prohibited under the federal-provincial accord banning water exports. Nor are they covered under the Great Lakes Charter signed by eight northern states and two Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec. All exempt products from the export ban.

Shrybman is arguing that by permitting this water to be exported, Canada will set itself up for future trade challenges under the North American Free Trade Agreement, if Canadian provinces refuse permits to other investors in similar circumstances down the road.

For Carol and Melvyn Dillon, residents of Perth, and second-home owners Michael and Maureen Cassidy, Ann German and Eileen Naboznak, as well as Sulyn Cedar, who heads a Perth environmental group, the OMYA appeal is about protecting the environment. They say OMYA's permit was granted without a full range of environmental studies. There wasn't enough information, they argue, to make a sound decision.

Even the company and the province of Ontario, which issued the permit, admitted at the hearing that they didn't have enough information when it was granted last August. However, more studies have been done since, and they now believe they have enough information, argued Doug Watters, a lawyer for the environment ministry.

The hearing was adjourned before OMYA got an opportunity to present its case, so only limited aspects of its position have been put forward so far.

Ontario regulations require a full study of so-called "ecosystem effects" before water permits are granted, according to testimony at the hearing.

But senior Ontario officials admitted that at the "operational" level, no one has spelled out how such effects are to be assessed. Thus in OMYA's case, only limited studies were done, many of them paid for by the company, before the province granted the permit.

One witness called by Michael Cassidy, but not permitted to speak at the hearing, was a Vermonter familiar with OMYA's operations in the Rutland area. Michael Fannin, a selectman from Tinmouth, traveled all the way to Perth and waited around for two days, hoping to testify about OMYA's environmental record in Vermont.

But the Canadian company's lawyer, Alan Bryant, argued successfully that its operations are entirely separate, and under different management from the Vermont company. So Fannin's testimony wasn't allowed.

"I was afraid this might happen," said Fannin after his banishment. "Now it looks as though I haven't had any effect up here, and that's frustrating. It's a fascinating story and I was just on the verge of telling everybody."


[Carrie Buchanan is a freelance writer for the Ottawa Citizen.