Another black liquor spill in Peninsula Harbour

Today we received the troubling news that once again, a toxic spill occurred on the Tembec property in Peninsula Harbour.

As communicated by Environment Canada:

On Tuesday March 30th MOE Officers discovered another spill incident at the closed Marathon Pulp mill. This represents the 4th incident in recent months. Foam, odours and discoloured water were observed at the shoreline adjacent to the clarifier on the mill site. The clarifier is believed to contain approximately 100,000 gallons of black liquor (diluted) and is expected to be the source of this incident .

Both MOE and Environment Canada were on site March 30th reviewing Tembec’s activities to address the 3 previous incidents when this was discovered.

MOE collected samples and EC planned to collect further samples for toxicity on March 31st. MOE and EC discussed with Tembec actions to undertake immediately. A vacuum truck is now being used to haul the black liquor from the clarifier to the spill basin a few kilometres away. This basin has been the receiving point for material removed from the pipeline and the contaminated groundwater which is being extracted from the beach near chamber #3. Tembec was requested to locate other vacuum trucks for this purpose.

Here's more from the (April 1st) Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal.