NEWS photo Nell Lucents

BOB BROWN, president of North Vancouver's Elemental Research Inc., tests some pottery samples for lead
content. The dark color in the test tube stows that high levels of lead are present.

JACKS FEARS POLLUTION WILL CONTINUE

A WEST VANCOUVER environmentalist is furious with a
new plan that he says will allow Canadian Forest Products’
(Canfor) Port Mellon Pulp Mill to continue exceeding pro-
vincial air pollution standards beyond the deadline of its

current provincial variance order.

“I'm just sick,’’ Terry Jacks
said Friday after meeting Thursday
with ministry of environment of-
ficials. ‘They promised that the
mill would be complying with the
terms of its variance order by the
end of June 1988, but now they
present ihis new four-year plan.
It’s the same old story.”’

Jacks, who has spearheaded a
battle to force the 79-year-old mill
to comply with air pollution stan-
dards, met with Environment and
Parks Minister Bruce Strachan in
Victoria Thursday to present con-
tinuing health concerns from West
Vancouver residents over the emis-
sions from the mill and get provin-

cial assurances that the terms of
the mill’s variance order will be
met by July 1988.

Jacks said the mill’s new plan
will upgrade the mill from ‘B’ to
‘A’ pulp mill standards.

But he said the mill should be
investing money in the smokestack
scrubbers that will bring it into
compliance with its variance order
before moving ahead with other
plans.

“ds (the four-year plan)
another extension, that’s all it is,"’

Jacks said.

Canfor spokesman Darrel
Mawhinney said the company has
had ongoing discussions with the
provincial government over plans
for the mill, ‘‘but nothing has been
filed yet. So we feel it is premature
to release any details at this time.’’

He said Canfor will issue a pre-
liminary statement on the plan
very soon.

Environment ministry records
show that the mill has not met
provincial air pollution standards
for the past 10 years. The mill was
granted a variance order in Aug.
1983, giving it special permission
to exceed air pollution standards.
That order was extended again in
1986 on the understanding that the
mill would be in compliance with
air pollution standards by July
1988.

In a Nov. 15 News story, Jacks
questioned the value of results

3 - Sunday, December 6, 1987 - North Shore News

oisonin

A NORTH VANCOUVER research company analysing
pottery and glassware submitted by two Seattle residents has
found dangerously high levels of lead and uranium in an
alarming number of the samples, some of which were pur-

chased on the North Shore.

Elemental Research Inc. (ERI)
president Bob Brown said he was
not trying to be alarmist, but the
results indicating high amounts of'
lead in the various samples were
“too frequent for my liking.’’

Though most of the 80 to 100
pottery samples analysed thus far
by ERI are from the collection of
Seattle’s Don and Fran Wallace,
some were purchased by the
Wallaces on the North Shore.

The Wallaces began marketing
lead testing kits and campaigning
to reduce the amount of lead in the
environment in the early 1980s
after they traced illnesses such as
anemia and dehydration directly to
their pottery collection and the
lead leaching from incorrectly fired
pottery glazes.

ERI is a new North Shore com-
pany that analyses blood, tissue
and other substances for the ex-
istence of trace metals for such
organizations as the Vancouver
Children’s Hospital.

Using a $350,000
Coupled Plasma Mass Spec-
trometer (ICPMS), which can
measure the existence of any ele-
ment in the trace metals down to
one part in one trillion, the com-
pany found levels of lead 20 times
the acceptable federal levels in a
set of earthenware cups purchased
at a Lower Lonsdale antique store.

The set, which was made in
Mexico, also contained high levels
of uranium. .

According to Consumer and
Corporate Affairs Canada
spokesman Rein Vasara, pottery
that leaches more than seven parts
per million of lead or % part per
million of cadmium over 18 hours
in a four per cent acetic solution
can not be legally sold in Canada.

Persons selling such merchan-
dise, he said, are committing an
offence under the Hazardous Pro-
ducts Act.

Brown said the set of Mexican
cups tested by ERI had 130 parts
per million of lead, ‘‘which, to say
the least, represents lethal levels.’’

Other samples tested had what
Brown said were ‘‘alarming’’
amounts of uranium.

He said most of the samples that
showed dangerous levels of lead
and uranium had been imported
from countries such as Italy, Mex-
ico and Spain, but some, like a

Inductively

from five air monitoring stations
set up in the West Vancouver and
Howe Sound areas to test for mill
air emissions.

Though the Ministry of En-
vironment takes hourly readings
for Totally Reduced Sulphur
(TRS) from the monitors, Jacks
said no measurement of such dan-
gerous mill emissions as sulphur
dioxide, particulate matter, mer-
captans and chlorine were being
taken.

He said residents were concerned
more with the health effects of
low-level mixing of those emis-
sions than with the odor caused by
TRS.

Canfor has invested $20 million
on pollution controls at the mill
over the nine years and will spend
an additional $2.3. million in
1987-88 to reduce odors caused by
the mill’s TRS emissions.

design-coated drinking glass, were
from the United States.

Toxic lead atoms from pottery
glazes that have not been fired at
high enough temperatures can be
dissolved when they come into
contact with acidic liquids such as
orange juice or coffee.

Vasara said cottage craft in-
dustries in Canada have been made
aware of the dangers of lead levels
in such things as paint and pottery
glazes. As a result, he said, lead
has largely been removed from
crafts products used in Canada.

Federal government inspectors
have, he said, removed large
shipments of ceramic products,
some expensive brands, imported
from countries such as China and
Japan that were found to have
high lead levels.

Lead, he said, is a cumulative
poison that is dangerous -to the
human system in any amount.

ft is not excreted and is, instead,
stored in body tissue and bone and
released back into the
bloodstream. The effects of lead
are insidious and can range from
headaches to aches and pains in
the joints to personality changes
and decreased IQs.

Especially vulnerable to lead
poisoning, according to a recent
Environmental Protection Agency
report, are middle-aged men,
pregnant women and children be-
tween five months and six years of
age.

Vasara said consumers should be
suspicious of pottery that looks
amateurishly made and refrain
from using such products as drink-
ing vessels.

Anyone in doubt, he said,
should be able to get information
from the product’s manufacturer
or importer. They can also call
Consumer and Corporate Affairs’
Products Safety branch at 666-
5003. °

Simple lead testing kits for pot-
tery are also available from West
Vancouver’s.Jodette Associates for
$29.50. The kits have enough solu-
tion to test between 100 and 150
samples. '

For kit information call 921-
7210 or 925-2042.

Weather:

Sunday through Tuesday,
periods of rain. Highs
near 10°C.

INDEX
Business............ 25
Christmas News......33
Classified Ads........67
Doug Collins......... 9
Comics ............. 62
Editorial Page........ 6
Fashion.............17
Bob Hunter.......... 4
Lifestyles............49
Mailbox... .
Sports.........

TV lListings.......
Travel ...........6-. 56
What's Going On.....53