City receives $50,000 to plan mill site remediation

Fednor funding announcements to conduct environmental assessment and help CANO.

This week, on behalf of Fednor, MP, Marc Serré announced a $50,000 grant that will help West Nipissing with it’s redevelopment of the former mill site.

Specifically the funding is being used to conduct a Phase II Environmental Assessment of the 27-acre parcel of land it acquired in 2021 from Weyerhaeuser. In the press release, they noted that doing this assessment “will allow the municipality to develop a remediation strategy for the property.” When providing an update to council in February, city staff indicated that the plan was to conduct a Phase II Environmental Assessment in 2024 and that this was already budgeted for. This grant will likely alleviate the budget.

A Phase II Environmental Assessment will be the first time the municipality gets actual soil samples of the property. When pressed on the subject earlier this year, CAO, Jay Barbeau confirmed that this was not done prior to purchasing the land. It appears Weyerhaeuser was not willing to release environmental information prior to a sale. They also appeared reluctant to conduct a Phase II Assessment themselves.

That is why the city was able to purchase the waterfront property “as is” for only $100,000.

Environmental concerns by former council dismissed

When the mill site was acquired in 2020, some councillors had concerns that taxpayers might assume liability for environmental remediation from Weyerhaeuser. However, staff reassured them that they had a satisfactory environmental assessment.

In 2022, after interviewing mayor Joanne Savage, BayToday wrote of the purchase:

“At the time, there was some push-back from councillors about the risk around purchasing a former industrial site, and concerns taxpayers may be on the hook for any environmental remediation. But once environmental assessments were completed, the purchase was given the go-ahead by council.”

There are many cases of old paper mill sites becoming nightmares for eventual land owners. Prince Rupert, BC unfortunately inherited a former 50-acre plot of land after their town mill failed in 2015. The city fought in court but ended up having to bear responsibility for most of the rehabilitation costs of the old site which cost several millions. 

Weyerhaeuser is a multi-billion dollar corporation accountable to shareholders. They likely off-loaded the Sturgeon Falls site in order to reduce their long-term liability exposure. In their 2021 financial report to shareholders they marked liabilities for old properties they were responsible for cleaning at over $100 million. This number likely got lower after they made a deal with West Nipissing.

“Based on currently available information and analysis, we believe it is reasonably possible that our costs to remediate all the identified sites may exceed our current accruals of $63 million by up to $126 million” Weyerhaeuser 2021 Annual Report

Funding for CANO

On Tuesday, Fednor also announced a $97,000 grant for CANO (Conseil des art du Nipissing Ouest). The grant is slated to develop a strategic plan in order for the organization to improve programming, services and profitability.

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