BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association
Your Data Your Rights
COLEMAN TOWNSHIP — The Citizens for a Clean Coleman Township are seeking help from two individuals who filed a formal request with the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario (EC) in 2012/2013 over the state of the Cobalt Refinery, located in Coleman Township.
In a social media post last week, the Citizens group announced they were seeking the names of the two people who submitted what they say was a detailed, well-informed formal request asking for an investigation into the abandoned refinery site that was sent to the EC.
The Citizens for a Clean Coleman Township had previously formed a group called the Coleman Refinery Property Task Force, working with Coleman council on the issue of contamination at the refinery site.
They decided to disband the task force and form their own citizens group to move the process of getting the refinery site cleaned up quicker with various government agencies, especially the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP).
The citizens group is seeking an immediate clean-up of the abandoned refinery site, unused since 2007. They do not feel it is the responsibility of Coleman Township and its citizenry to accept any costs for the clean-up of the site or to securing the site from public entry.
What’s at stake, the concerned citizens believe, is the immediate health of residents living near the refinery and the property values of the homes within the 500-metre vicinity of the site.
They say the site contains barrels of unidentified potentially hazardous chemicals and toxins which pose a health risk to the residents of Coleman Township.
“When we were digging into the history of the Cobalt Refinery site, we came across the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario’s findings from 2012/2013. In that report, it mentioned that two individuals had submitted a really detailed and well-informed request asking for an investigation into the site,” said Citizens for a Clean Coleman Township chairperson Trina Godden Breault in an email interview. “ We’ve never been able to see their actual application, we were denied access based on whistleblower protections, so we don’t know who they are. We’d like to file a new request for investigation ourselves, but having access to their research — or even connecting with them directly — would be a huge help.”
Godden Breault said it was acknowledged at that time that the contamination of the Cobalt Refinery site the “government has already acknowledged in those findings that it’s their responsibility to deal with it.We need all the evidence and support we can gather to make sure they finally act.”
If anyone knows who the two individuals are that sent the letters to the Ministry of the Environment back in 2012 contact Trina Godden Breault at 705-676-6453 or email cleancoleman@poton.me or send a message to the Citizens for a Clean Coleman Township (CCCT) Facebook page.
The Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) is a federally funded program to add coverage in under-covered areas or on under-covered issues. This content is created and submitted by participating publishers and is not edited. Access can also be gained by registering and logging in at: https://lji-ijl.ca
You can support trusted and verified news content like this.
FIPA’s news monitor subscribers, donors and funders help make these available to everyone rather than behind a paywall. We appreciate every contribution because it makes a difference.
If you found this article interesting and useful, please consider contributing here.
