Saturday, December 21, 2002 Back The Halifax Herald Limited

Sobeys urged to do more to clean Sackville stream

By Jeffrey Simpson / City Hall Reporter

The Sobeys-owned company responsible for contaminating Little Sackville River isn't going far enough with its commitment to help restore it, the president of the Sackville Rivers Association says.

"I don't understand why Sobeys don't put their best foot forward," Walter Regan said Thursday.

Atlantic Shopping Centres Ltd. has taken responsibility for killing thousands of fish in the Little Sackville River in July.

The company had hired contractors to tear down the former Kmart building at Downsview Mall, which it owns.

A water-main break at the site sent 635,000 litres of water gushing through clay and pyritic slate beneath the former Kmart building in Lower Sackville.

The runoff from the break carried aluminum hydroxide into the river, killing the fish and insects and damaging a four-kilometre section of the river.

The company's president, Stuart Blair, said at the time that his company would hire an environmental consultant to help restore the river to health.

Mr. Regan said the company promised to restore the river to a level that was a little bit better than it was before the accident.

But Mr. Regan said his group has a different view of what that improvement means.

"It's a question of what pair of eyes is looking at the problem," he said.

Mr. Regan said the community was initially delighted the company agreed to sit down with them and discuss the matter, along with officials from the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the province's Environment Department and Halifax Regional Municipality.

Sobeys agreed to put back 6,000 salmon and do studies for two years to monitor sediment levels, water quality and fish and insect recovery, Mr. Regan said.

It also cleaned out debris from a stretch of the river.

But Sobeys should put back 60,000 salmon and 30,000 trout and continue the studies for 10 years, Mr. Regan said.

He said it would take about a decade for the river to fully recover with that amount of stocking.

"The regulators are saying they don't have the power to demand this stuff," Mr. Regan said.

"But we're saying Sobeys, if they're living up to their statement, they shouldn't be hiding behind the regulators."

DFO has the power to lay charges for habitat destruction, but it claims it can't in this situation, Mr. Regan said.

"Nobody ran a bulldozer down the river, they just poisoned it," he said of DFO's position.

Mr. Regan said it's difficult to determine how many fish were killed in the accident but estimates 30,000 to 40,000 were lost, including many that had recently hatched.

Sobeys has also refused to set up information kiosks in its stores to solicit donations for restoring the river, he said. And it is unwilling to support local education efforts and a St. Mary's University study of silt levels.

Environment Department officials are still investigating and might charge Sobeys with causing the contamination, spokeswoman Valerie Bellefontaine said Friday.

Ms. Bellefontaine said the federal DFO has been handling the restoration aspect of the case.

"They're the experts in terms of what's appropriate for the river," she said.

Nobody from Atlantic Shopping Centres was available for comment, and officials from DFO didn't return calls on Friday.


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