HALIFAX—Ellen Page needs more than 280 characters to talk about Northern Pulp.
The Hollywood actress from Halifax has taken to Twitter in recent weeks to criticize the Northern Pulp Mill’s plan to pump 62 million litres of treated waste, or effluent, each day directly into the Northumberland Strait between Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
The plan has been loudly contested by environmentalists, local fishermen, the P.E.I. government and Indigenous residents of Pictou Landing First Nation near the Abercrombie, N.S. plant.
In response to environmental concerns around the proposed effluent pipeline, a spokesperson for mill owner Paper Excellence Canada said via email that treated effluent is “non-toxic.” Since the bleached kraft pulp mill started in 1967, effluent has been flowing into the Northumberland Strait with “both our fisheries and forest industries coexisting,” Kathy Cloutier wrote.
Page said she’s so passionate about the situation because it strikes her as a “microcosm” of all kinds of issues around the environment, public money going to large private companies and the fact that, for most Nova Scotians, the depth of this history hasn’t been shared with us.
“I actually think a lot of people, particularly people with certain privileges, don’t understand,” Page said in an exclusive interview with StarMetro this week as she drove through São Paulo en route to the airport.
“At this point, it’s insanity because we know what’s happening with our climate. We’ve been told what’s going to happen by 2030, 2040. And if you’re in a place of power, a politician and have that control, you need to step up right now.”
Fishermen have been blocking the mill’s survey boats from scouting for a potential pipe location since this spring. Just this week, Paper Excellence Canada filed court documents seeking an injunction against fishermen who have blocked those vessels.
Page, an award-winning actress known for her roles in films like Juno, Inception and Flatliners, said she had recently “devoured” Joan Baxter’s The Mill: Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest. She said it gives vital context on the Northern Pulp issue.
“I felt … compelled to do what I can because I do have the privilege of a platform,” Page said.
“I hope that I can help share the information — and then needless to say make sure that First Nations people that are a part of resistance, fishermen ... are really the ones we’re focusing on.”
Right now, the effluent is treated in a basin system where effluent flows through a pipe from the mill to Boat Harbour and then to Boat Harbour Basin, iPolitics reported in an October piece about the mill. There, it mixes with other fresh water rivers and streams that flow in there. It is retained for up to 30 days before being discharged into the saltwater at the Pictou Landing shoreline.
Have your say
Now that the mill is losing Boat Harbour as an effluent destination — the 2015 Boat Harbour Act set Jan. 31, 2020 as the cut-off date — it has to go somewhere, hence the debate around the possible new pipeline into the strait.
The Nova Scotia government will handle remediation of the Boat Harbour cleanup, which has a budget of about $133 million.
For years, Indigenous leaders like Pictou Landing Chief Andrea Paul have been trying to raise awareness about odours and health issues in their community, which they say stem from the effluent that’s flowed into Boat Harbour since 1967.
In a victim impact statement in provincial court, Paul said a Northern Pulp pipeline leak in 2014 that spilled millions of litres of waste on Mi’kmaw burial grounds at Indian Cross Point “triggered anger and fear which can only be understood as part of the decades-long environmental degradation of our territory.”
The mill employs about 300 people. While Page said she “absolutely” cares about people’s livelihoods, she’s especially concerned with “having healthy, good jobs in Nova Scotia instead of giving hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to this massive corporation.
“We’re at a point in this world where, it’s like enough is enough, and Nova Scotia should be a climate leader. We have so many amazing, positive things that can be used in terms of those resources — and those are the jobs,” Page said.
Besides the Boat Harbour remediation, the province has long provided loans and funding to the mill. The Canadian Press reported in April 2013 that Nova Scotia provided more than $20 million in loans and refinancing for upgrades and equipment to reduce air pollution.
That number included a $14.7-million repayable loan, a $2.5-million forgivable loan and refinancing for a $5.4-million loan from 2009. The company was set to spend $5 million of its own money on upgrades.
Last week, a Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruled that the province must consult with Pictou Landing First Nation about how public money is provided to Northern Pulp for an effluent treatment plant — if at all.
In North America, Cloutier said, “no other treatment process is used to treat kraft mill effluent.” Northern Pulp has thoroughly investigated treatment options, she said, and they must include a way to discharge into water in order for the mill to operate.
“It is not a question of cost; it is one of available technology. Industry attempts at zero-effluent technology in kraft mills have failed,” Cloutier said.
The new Activated Sludge Treatment system will see no untreated effluent leave the mill property. That is a “significant improvement” to the current system, she argued. She wrote that Activated Sludge Treatment systems are used throughout the world for treating industrial and domestic waste and are very similar to municipal waste water treatment systems.
The company also says various regulated emissions, such as the amount of organic material and suspended solids in the effluent, would be well within federally regulated limits.
However, Page said building a new pipeline sending effluent into the ocean is “just crazy.”
Even though Page said she’d known generally about the mill growing up in Nova Scotia (and “played a lot of soccer in Pictou”), Baxter’s book opened her mind to the environmental impacts in Boat Harbour and to the government’s reluctance “to do anything.”
When asked what message she had for the provincial government, Page said “they need to just listen to the science” and have compassion and care about their constituents in Pictou.
Veteran fisheries scientists and other advocates are now calling on the federal government to handle an environmental review of the proposed treatment plant and pipeline.
Page’s support for The Mill means “an enormous amount,” Baxter said in an interview, adding that she knew the actress was passed a copy by their mutual friend Lil MacPherson, an environmental advocate and co-owner of The Wooden Monkey restaurants.
“It’s not every young Hollywood star that’ll go out on a limb and take kind of a political stance, so I think it’s really amazing. I think it reflects so well on her and her commitment to Nova Scotia,” Baxter said.
Although Page doesn’t live in Nova Scotia anymore and is best known for her films, she studied permaculture design at an ecovillage in Eugene, Ore. Permaculture refers to the design of sustainable, naturally harmonious settlements.
Baxter said anyone who criticizes Page’s right to weigh in on the mill issue in her home province should look carefully at their own motivations.
“If you look at the qualifications of most of our politicians, I’m not sure that I would put them up on any scientific pedestal either,” Baxter said.
“Any citizen who is out there doing their own research and trying to figure out what some of the environmental and justice issues are in our society — kudos to them, because I wish more of our politicians would do it.”
Page’s tweets and support for the #nopipe movement have reached Pictou Landing where she is “highly regarded,” Brian Hebert, the First Nation’s lawyer, said in an interview.
“It certainly has increased the profile, and the band is certainly aware of it and they’re very appreciative,” he said.
When it comes to the new treatment facility, Hebert said their community understands the waste has to be handled and disposed of somewhere — but it’s the idea of public money being involved that has them concerned.
“If it’s not economically feasible on its own, then why should the province be putting money into it and propping up this pulp mill?” Hebert said.
Hebert added that he wants people to understand that from Pictou Landing’s point of view, they don’t want the mill to close.
“They just want clean air and they want clean water, and if that can be done with the mill operating, then that’s fine,” he said. “Hopefully the days are gone when we have to trade off jobs for the environment or the environment for jobs. We can do both of them together if we do it right.”
According to a statement from Department of Environment spokesperson Bruce Nunn, Nova Scotians have the opportunity to provide feedback and share their concerns about any proposed project through the Environmental Assessment process.
He said once the Northern Pulp effluent treatment facility project is registered for environmental assessment, there will be a 30-day public comment period. They “encourage all Nova Scotians who want to be heard on this project” to sign up at novascotia.ca.
Nunn wrote that any project proposal will have to meet all provincial and federal regulatory requirements before it would be approved. A number of experts will be involved in reviewing the proposal through the Nova Scotia environmental assessment process, including representatives from the federal Departments of Fisheries and Oceans and Environment and Climate Change Canada.