The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
The Sudbury and District Health Unit is looking to coordinate a meeting at which representatives of three levels of government, an environmental group and others would discuss a situation that prompted an Environment Canada investigation at Vale Ltd.
The first Burgess Hawkins heard about Environment Canada seizing computers and materials from the mining giant, in relation to an alleged 2012 violation of the Fisheries Act, was when he read a news story about the raid, first reported by The Sudbury Star.
Since early last month, when Environment Canada produced a warrant and was accompanied by the RCMP to Vale’s engineering offices in Copper Cliff, Burgess has been keeping an eye on the unfolding investigation.
A manager in the SDHU’s Environmental Health division, Burgess said Friday he has had conversations with officials with the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change, and talked with a co-chair of the Coalition for a Liveable Sudbury.
He has also left messages for city officials and may even invite Environment Canada to the table so the parties can meet face to face to discuss the incident that launched the federal investigation.
Environment Canada says its investigation was prompted by a 2012 complaint from a resident who noticed a foamy green substance in a creek in the west end of the city. It’s believed to have come from the slag piles along Big Nickel Road.
There is a suggestion in the warrant that water may have been seeping from then-Inco slag piles into Nolin and then Junction creeks, dating back decades.
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