"The Nightmare Mess Left by One Closed Pulp Mill"

"Documents expose the huge cleanup BC faces for Port Alice and 11 more shut mills. Will new projects also slip off the hook?" 

"On a cloudy February morning in 2019, the owners of a century-old pulp mill in Port Alice, on northern Vancouver Island, told their workers to leave, shut off the power and “lock the gate.”

Inside, a sprawling waste site containing oil, asbestos, mercury, chlorine and carcinogenic chemicals stood at “imminent risk of failure.”

Six years and one landfill landslide later, the province has spent over $150 million to address the site’s immediate risks — but dangers remain, including unstable toxic waste landfills perched on cliffs overlooking Neroutsos Inlet, once a spawning site for Pacific salmon and in the traditional territory of the Quatsino First Nation."

Zoë Yunker reports for The Tyee July 14, 2025.

 

Source: The Tyee, 07/16/2025