| Plant charged under sewer bylaw |
| By Morgan Ian Adams |
| Enterprise-Bulletin Special (Fri, January 12, 2000) |
| COLLINGWOOD - The town has charged a local industry with
violating the municipal sewer bylaw. |
| Nacan Products faces two charges for offences under the
town's sewer use bylaw, including the discharging of sewage in which
biochemical oxygen demand exceeds 300 milligrams per litre, and the
discharging of sewage containing more than 350 milligrams per litre of
suspended solids. |
| Nacan has its own pre-treatment plant, which was designed
and built by the company at a cost of $8.5 million. The plant was
built two years ago after residents and business owners in the area of
Collingwood's treatment plant complained of odors which were linked at the
time to Nacan and Canadian Mist. |
| Nacan was charged in early August, and the offences are
alleged to have taken place between July 17 and Aug 5 of last year.
First appearance was on Aug 18, and the matter is set for trial in Barrie
on June 26. |
| Nacan intends to defend the charges. |
| Mayor Terry Geddes, while choosing his words with caution,
did acknowledge previous problems with Nacan's effluent in the past. |
| "We have experienced difficulty with Nacan in the
past," he said. "They've built their own waste treatment
facility, and we commend them for that, but they experienced a plant upset
(in August) where they exceeded the guidelines." |
| In the mid-1990's the town attempted to make improvements
to its sewage treatment plant in an effort to correct the odour problem,
which seemed to be most noticeable around First Street in the area of
Beech and Birch streets. The odour was blamed on the biochemical
oxygen content originating from the two plants - a result of the process
of making both starch and whisky. |
| "Nacan did work with the municipality to rectify the
problems (of four years ago)," Geddes said, who was the councilor
responsible for public works at the time of the odour complaints. |
| "But policies are policies, and when they're broken,
you have to follow through on them because we have obligations... under
the Municipal Act and to the people of the municipality. |
| "We, as a municipality, are obliged to follow the Municipal
Act, and there's a bylaw in place that says you must meet the following
chemical codes." |
| Geddes could not comment if the company was charged because
there had been problems in the past. |
| Plant management could not be reached for comment by press
time. |
