Lynn Rosales is in her 60s now, but since birth she has known “nothing other than the Chemical Valley, nothing other than smokestacks and sounds and smells,” she said in an interview with Canada’s National Observer.
When she was young, the industry was not accountable or transparent about what it was “spewing into the water, what it was spewing into the land.” It was all “free game,” said Rosales, who today works in the environment department at Aamjiwnaang First Nation.
On Thursday, at a press conference in Queen’s Park, Aamjiwnaang’s new chief, Janelle Nahmabin, sent a message to the media, the public, and Queen’s Park officials about the resilience and fight of Aamjiwnaang against environmental abuses.
“Aamjiwnaang will no longer be known as the community that is a victim of Chemical Valley, but we will be known for our environmental leadership,” said Nahmabin, elected in September of 2024.
Aamjiwnaang has taken matters into its own hands, monitoring industry in the Chemical Valley itself — and owns the data it produces.
“So, having the data, having our own source of information that's available for our consultants and for us to use in our fight, to create policy change, to create legislative change, we're going to do it,” Rosales said.
“We're going to use what we have. We're going to use what we can collect, and that's how we're going to move forward to hopefully create that better, sustainable future for our next generations.”
After the press conference, the First Nation at the centre of the largest concentration of petrochemical plants in Canada, brought their message to a rally of about 100 people in front of Queen’s Park. Their demands for environmental justice were both specific and overarching.
The First Nation, which sits next to Sarnia, Ontario, and around 300 km southwest of Toronto, also demanded action on sulphur dioxide. The chemical was found to be off the charts in the spring when Aamjiwnaang declared a state of emergency over dangerously high benzene levels. Aamjiwnaang remains under a state of emergency because the pollution crisis still has not been resolved, Nahmabin said at the press conference.
Canada’s National Observer reported last spring on the elevated spikes of sulphur dioxide at 200 parts per billion (ppb), which happened at the same time that benzene levels sent Aamjiwnaang citizens to hospital. The federal government has set the Canadian Ambient Air Quality Standards for sulphur dioxide at 70 ppb peaks.
Six of nine months leading up to September 2024, had dangerously elevated levels of sulphur dioxide for the maximum 24-hour average. And maximum one-hour spikes were all elevated to dangerous levels above 100 ppb on average over the preceding nine months.
Sulphur dioxide can cause breathing difficulties for those suffering from respiratory illnesses, such as asthma and other diseases. Short-term exposure to high concentrations of sulphur dioxide can harm the respiratory system of humans and animals, with even more significant risks for those with existing respiratory issues, according to the federal government.
Beze Gray, a youth leader from Aamjiwnaang First Nation, said their First Nation fought to end dangerously elevated levels of benzene in the spring. At that time, community members were rushed to the hospital, and young students were participating in land-based activities during the massive benzene and sulphur dioxide spikes, Gray said.
The fight, which included calling out the provincial and federal governments in front of the world at the global plastics negotiations in Ottawa, eventually led to the shutdown of the INEOS Styrolution plant. The plant, which processed much of Chemical Valley’s benzene, was directly across the street from the Aamjiwnaang and the First Nation's administrative building.
Since the closure of INEOS Styrolution, much of the benzene from petrochemical plants will be kept on-site at each plant. But now, Aamjiwnaang is turning its focus to sulphur dioxide.
“We're still trying to fight sulphur dioxide and have a call to action and a list of demands,” Gray said.
Those demands include lowering the sulphur dioxide emissions threshold and limits during emission spikes, updating regulations using current regulatory models, and ensuring all air monitors can trigger alerts of emission spikes.
“There is no longer any excuse for Ontario officials to continue to delay implementing these solutions,” Nahmabin told reporters.
Scott Grant, an air pollution control engineer who works with the First Nation, told reporters that standards in the region are “way out of date.” He said science has improved globally, and what Aamjiwnaang recommends aligns with the World Health Organization and Ontario’s air quality standards.
“It's a regulation that's already existing. It just needs to be updated. This concept of production cutbacks has been used in other communities, — Sudbury, for example,” Grant said. “It's unconscionable that this hasn't been updated for Aamjiwnaang. There are health impacts.”
Nahmabin also took the province to task for not upholding harvesting rights under Section 35 of the Constitution and treaty rights tracing back to the principles of the two-row wampum belt and the dish with one spoon, which asserted the Crown and Indigenous nations would share the land.
Nahmabin said that today, the province does not uphold those principles or ensure Section 35 harvesting rights by not addressing regulatory gaps and pollution controls.
“It's our right to protect the health and well-being of all things that share our territory, the right to protect and revitalize the biodiversity of our territory, and the right to participate and engage in all forms of governments that may encroach upon our territory and jurisdiction,” she said.
Matteo Cimellaro / Canada’s National Observer / Local Journalism Initiative
Comments