The mayor of Rouyn-Noranda says varying reactions to the Horne smelter pollution issue are raising concerns about a potential social divide among the population.

At Monday night's city council meeting, Mayor Diane Dallaire says these perturbations are causing divisions that she believes are not being resolved.

She states Rouyn-Noranda residents are worried about their health and is calling on the company Glencore, which owns the Horne smelter, to better reassure the population about arsenic and other metal emissions.

At the same time, Dallaire says many residents fear that the smelter could close, eliminating hundreds of jobs.

Last Thursday, Claude Bélanger, head of Glencore's North American copper operations, announced a $500 million investment to achieve an arsenic emission threshold of 15 nanograms per cubic metre of air (ng/m3) by 2027, as requested by Quebec public health authorities and the provincial environment ministry.

The company says it expects that 84 per cent of the urban perimeter of Rouyn-Noranda will reach a concentration of three ng/m3 or less in 2027, which would correspond to the Quebec standard.

However, management was unable to indicate how and when the smelter would be able to reach the Quebec standard for the entire city.

Dallaire notes that mining regions like Rouyn-Noranda have a history of pooling researchers, business leaders and employees to find solutions to problems similar to that of the Horne smelter.

However, she says she remains apprehensive of a possible social fracture within the population, making her fear that there is insufficient cohesion to achieve a common understanding.

Dallaire adds people are also facing psychological health problems due to the Horne Foundry file.

The population has been asked to vote on the new threshold of 15 nanograms per cubic meter from Sept. 6 to Oct. 20.

To reach this objective, Glencore says it plans to construct a new plant to re-engineer the copper transformation processes, add a high-capacity air cleaning system, build a new energy-efficient casting wheel, improve current capture systems and optimize facilities to reduce emissions as much as possible.

-- This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Aug. 23, 2022.