Very high levels of arsenic on school grounds in Quebec town near smelter

Analyses carried out by the Ministry of the Environment on samples of metal dust on the grounds of a school in Rouyn-Noranda after an incident that occurred a few weeks ago at the Horne Foundry show an arsenic content 137 times higher than the limit set in Quebec.

On March 7, Rouyn-Noranda citizens shared photos of "black snow" on social networks.

Six days later, the Ministry of the Environment issued a notice of non-compliance to Glencore, owner of the smelter, for the emission of contaminants "under section 20 of the Environment Quality Act (EQA) and for not having recovered the contamination."

Four days after the citizens' report, on 11 March, the ministry proceeded to analyze snow samples at various locations in the city.

The results of the analysis, released on Wednesday, showed that the highest level of arsenic was found on the grounds of Notre-Dame de Protection primary school, with a level of 4,130 milligrams per kilogram, 137 times higher than the arsenic soil concentration limit for residential properties in Quebec.

The information was first published by Radio-Canada.

Isabelle Fortin-Rondeau, who is part of the citizens' group Mères au front, is offended that once again in the smelter file, citizens are learning important information from the media rather than from the authorities.

"When the famous wind turbine blew the smelter's concentrates onto the surrounding land (on March 7), we felt that no one was alarmed, the school board was not alarmed, public health was not alarmed and today we learn that it was highly contaminated with nickel, lead and arsenic," she said.

She denounced "a lack of transparency", because "it was the Ministry of the Environment that did the analyses, so why is the information coming to us through journalists who have obtained a copy of the analyses? It happened like that when we learned that houses were going to be destroyed to create a buffer zone, we learned it through the media, that's really the modus operandi since the beginning in this file, we have to run after the information," she said.

To obtain the results of the analyses, you have to search in a sub-section of a page called "Answers to requests for access to documents," which is in a section called "Dissemination of information and protection of personal information" of the Environment ministry's website.

The Canadian Press asked a regional spokeswoman for the department if it had a plan to communicate and explain the results of the March 11 tests to Rouyn-Noranda residents, but CP received no answer by Wednesday morning.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 3, 2023.