First Nations activist taking Ontario environment minister to court over air pollution regulations

A First Nations activist is taking Ontario’s environment minister to court for failing to follow through on a years-old promise to review the way the province regulates industrial air pollution.

Ada Lockridge is a member of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation, a community nestled amid a cluster of refineries, petrochemical plants and other industrial facilities known as Chemical Valley, near Sarnia.

In May 2009, Lockridge and a partner secured a pledge from the environment ministry that it would review how it regulates cumulative air pollution, such as in areas with a heavy presence of industrial plants.

After more than eight years of waiting, Lockridge has filed a court application asking a judge to order the province to immediately complete its review.

“We’re not talking about an academic exercise. We’re talking about people’s air,” said Kaitlyn Mitchell, Lockridge’s lawyer from the environmental advocacy group Ecojustice.

“There is a community of people in Aamjiwnaang . . . and every day they’re asked to breathe air that has contaminants in it. And no one has actually assessed the cumulative impact of those contaminants.”

The government currently regulates industrial air pollution by considering the emissions of each individual facility, rather than the cumulative impact all nearby plants have on the local air quality, according to the court application.

The long-promised review is now expected to be completed by fall 2017, said a spokesperson from the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.

Source: thestar.com