Dombind

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE --- May 15, 2002

Environmental groups call on 14 "hold-out" municipalities to stop spreading
Dombind - a dioxin-containing road dust suppressant

The 14 "hold-out" municipalities are:

In Northumberland County - Municipality of Brighton, Cramahe Township,
Alnwick/Haldimand Township, Municipality of Port Hope, Municipality of Trent
Hills

In Haliburton County - Dysart et al Township, Municipality of Highlands East

In Peterborough County - Asphodel/Norwood Township, Otonabee/South Monaghan
Township

In Hastings County - Tyendinaga Township, Tudor & Cashel Township

In Lennox & Addington County - Stone Mills Township

In Huron County - Municipality of South Huron

In Timiskaming District - Town of Haileybury

The Federation of Ontario Naturalists (FON) and Quinte Watershed Cleanup
(QWC) have just sent a letter to each of the 14 Ontario municipalities that
intend to use the dioxin-containing road dust suppressant Dombind during
2002, urging them to stop using it now. The Ministry of the Environment
(MOE) will require Dombind use on roads to end forever by October 31 of this
year.

Dombind is the concentrated liquid waste from Norampac Inc.'s cardboard mill
in Trenton. Norampac has offered Dombind free to municipalities for several
years. The number of municipalities using Dombind has plummeted from 90 in
the mid 1990s to only 14 last year.

Norampac has used a number of legal manoeuvres over the past three years,
both at Ontario's Environmental Review Tribunal and in the courts, to
attempt to extend the use of Dombind on roads for several more years. But in
February of this year, the company reached the end of the Dombind road when
its final request for an appeal was turned down in the courts. FON and QWC
participated in several of the legal proceedings, represented by the Sierra
Legal Defence Fund, to press for Dombind use to stop.

"Clearly, all other municipalities have recognized that Dombind is harmful
to the environment and to public health and have therefore
switched to other, less environmentally harmful dust suppressants," wrote
Linda Pim of FON and Manfred Koechlin of QWC in their letter to
municipalities. "By this time next year, Dombind will not be available to
you as an option for dust suppression, so why not do the right thing and
switch away from Dombind now?"

In a separate letter, FON and QWC called upon the Ministry of the
Environment to issue an order preventing the Municipality of Brighton (part
of which was formerly Brighton Township) from using any Dombind at all this
year. Norampac's annual Dombind monitoring report for 2001 shows that on
July 1, ditches beside Schriver Road in the Municipality of Brighton
contained 51.9 parts per trillion (ppt) dioxins - over five times the
permitted maximum of 10 ppt. The average ditch dioxin level for all of 2001
on Schriver Road was 34.45 ppt - over three times the allowable level.
The two environmental groups also called upon MOE to order remedial work on
Schriver Road to remove the dioxin-contaminated soils and send them for
proper treatment as hazardous waste.

While no chemical road dust suppressant is completely safe for the
environment, Dombind is commonly considered the most toxic. It readily
contaminates waterways near roads, reduces dissolved oxygen in river,
streams and wetlands killing fish and other aquatic life, and causes the
accumulation of highly toxic dioxins in the environment. Other dust
suppressants are available and are in widespread use by other Ontario
municipalities.

The Federation of Ontario Naturalists, founded in 1931, is a province-wide
conservation organization with 119 members groups; FON works to protect
wildlife habitat and natural areas across Ontario. Quinte Watershed Cleanup
(QWC) is the Public Advisory Committee to the Bay of Quinte Remedial Action
Plan Restoration Council; QWC has grown into a regional environmental
organization addressing numerous environmental issues.

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For further information:

Linda Pim, Federation of Ontario Naturalists
(416) 444-8419 ext. 243

Manfred Koechlin, Quinte Watershed Cleanup
(613) 962-9492