HANSARD

NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

COMMITTEE

ON

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Legislative Chamber

Contaminated Sites - October 2019 Report of the Auditor General

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Public Accounts Committee

Keith Bain (Chair)

Suzanne Lohnes-Croft (Vice-Chair)

Ben Jessome

Hon. Margaret Miller

Brendan Maguire

Rafah DiCostanzo

Tim Halman

Lisa Roberts

Susan Leblanc

[Hon. Margaret Miller was replaced by Bill Horne.]

In Attendance:

Kim Langille

Legislative Committee Clerk

Gordon Hebb

Chief Legislative Counsel

Mike MacPhee

Assistant Auditor General

Robert Jewer

Senior Audit Principal

WITNESSES

Department of Lands and Forestry

Julie Towers - Deputy Minister

Peter Geddes - Executive Director Policy, Planning and Support Services

Remi MacDonell - Director, Financial Advisory Services

Nova Scotia Lands Inc.

Donnie Burke - Executive Project Director

HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2020

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

9:00 A.M.

CHAIR

Keith Bain

VICE-CHAIR

Suzanne Lohnes-Croft

            THE CHAIR: Order, please. We’ll call the meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to order. Just one reminder to everyone in attendance - before we begin, please place your phones on silent or vibrate.

We’ll begin with introductions.

            [The committee members introduced themselves.]

            THE CHAIR: Thank you. On today’s agenda, we have officials from the Department of Lands and Forestry and Nova Scotia Lands with us to discuss contaminated sites from the October 2019 Report of the Auditor General.

We’ll ask the witnesses if they will introduce themselves.

            [The witnesses introduced themselves.]

            THE CHAIR: Also, in attendance, we have Legislative Counsel, representatives from the Office of the Auditor General, and representatives from the Clerk’s Office.

            To begin, we’ll ask the witnesses to make their opening remarks. Ms. Towers.

            JULIE TOWERS: Thank you to the committee for this opportunity to talk about an important investment we’re making in our provincial public lands. You have met the other members who are here. We have tried to bring a range of folks to help answer the questions.

            As you know, contaminated sites are a very long-standing issue whether on public land or not. In many cases, it goes back hundreds of years. The issue that we can talk about quite a bit today, for example, on Crown land - some of them are mines to that go back into the 18^th century and 19^th century. It’s a historical issue.

            We know of 69 abandoned mine sites on Crown land that may be contaminated. They all have unique circumstances - and we’ll talk about that today. You have to evaluate sites case by case.

            Part of our department’s mandate is the administration of the Crown land. It’s to ensure not only good uses in the present but also that it’s maintained for future generations. Government has taken the first steps to address sites that potentially are contaminated in a very systematic and comprehensive way. We can speak about work that has happened in the past, but this is about the systematic approach we’re taking on.

            Last year, government set aside $48 million to clean up two of the sites that we know needed work, and we can speak about the details of those. One is out at Montague mines here in HRM; the other is at Goldenville, which is down in the Guysborough area. These sites in particular were chosen as the initial two that we would tackle, for a combination of reasons: their size and, in some cases, known contamination levels. There had been past mining on those sites, so there’s a certain amount you can predict, but there had also been sampling by researchers.

            The other thing we’ll talk about is proximity to communities. You’re looking at environmental health and public health. The province commissioned in-depth assessments. That gives us a much deeper understanding of the sites and the potential estimate of costs. Once the costs are known, they are booked appropriately through Finance and Treasury Board as future financial liabilities. There is detailed policy on how you go about doing that.

            Notification was also provided to the Department of Environment, of course, because it’s the Environment Act and the Contaminated Sites Regulations that come into play. If anyone wants to see the details, this is where our partners at Nova Scotia Lands are critical. There are cost estimates and how they’re developed, and the reports are available. They’re posted online by Nova Scotia Lands. They show all the data and analysis that’s required to assess sites and come to cost estimates.

            Working with our partners, there are two particular areas. Certainly, how we clean up those first two sites at Montague and Goldenville, but to assess the other sites on which we’re aware there may be contamination. So $48 million is certainly a significant investment. It will take time to work through those sites, but these are the steps that need to be taken - very detailed, well thought out, planned well, and executed well.

            We certainly have a plan to address the remainder of the sites. It’s not only the staff at Lands and Forestry, but it’s interdepartmental work - certainly Nova Scotia Lands, but Environment, Energy and Mines, Finance and Treasury Board, and Health and Wellness are also all involved.

            There is an interdepartmental group and they work on that systematic risk-based approach in terms of how we will address these contaminated sites. It’s to ensure that the remediation of any risks is done in a strategic and thorough manner, addressing the greatest risk to both environment and human health first.

            Each site will have its unique circumstances and there can be a variety of levels of action and remediation with any contaminated sites, but specifically the ones we’re talking about today that we’re dealing with through the department. Some may require a little action; some may require a lot of action; and some may not even require action. We can speak to those examples. It’s very important that we do that careful evaluation. We want to provide an accurate picture of what needs to be done so that all Nova Scotians are aware - if there are risks and if there are costs, that it’s very well-informed by science.

            As well, Nova Scotia Lands has a broader mandate so they act as an agency for the government around remediation of contaminated sites - more broadly, not just on Crown lands; it may be other lands. We’re here in essence so that we have that range of experience here in terms of financial, environmental, and remediation, so ideally, we can answer all your questions today or gather the information for you. We’ll now be pleased to answer any questions.

            THE CHAIR: We’ll start the first round with 20 minutes for each caucus, beginning with the PC caucus. Mr. Halman.

            TIM HALMAN: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here and for the ongoing work you do on behalf of Nova Scotians. It’s very important work. I do want to recognize the historical context of remediation of mines, recognizing of course that this is a long-standing issue that’s now about to get some work going on this. I know how all of you within the departments take this as important.

            I want to start off by asking what the Auditor General asked in the report, which was: Why did the Department of Lands and Forestry over the years not have a detailed plan in place to conduct environmental assessments of abandoned mine sites?

            JULIE TOWERS: I can start, and others can add as needed on any of these questions. It’s really important to understand that in any department where there is land ownership, there is a responsibility to understand the condition of the land - if there is potential contamination.

I want people to be aware that for decades really - even before the Contaminated Sites Regulations came into place - the Environment Act has been in place since the mid-1990s. It already had provisions for addressing contaminated sites, whether it was a domestic oil spill or something larger. We had sites, for example, that came from historic spills - everything from ships, you name it. There has been work going on.

[9:15 a.m.]

            What we’re seeing now is, this is our first opportunity where we have tackled it in a very thorough way. We have dealt with sites over the years as we have known about them. We do have those examples for you if you would like to discuss those. It’s not that there was not work going on. It was dealing with individual sites as they became known. What we have done now with those abandoned mine sites is, as we start to be able to predict that there may be contamination, rather than do them just site by site, look at them as a whole and come up with an overall plan.

            TIM HALMAN: If I have understood you correctly, in the past, we would take this on a case-by-case basis. However, moving forward, there will be a more comprehensive, holistic, strategic plan to remediate these sites, which obviously most Nova Scotians are absolutely in favour of. No doubt there are other jurisdictions that are taking a comprehensive strategic approach to remediation. Is the department looking at a jurisdictional scan of what other provinces may be doing with respect to remediation?

            JULIE TOWERS: This is why I bring experts. I’ll turn to Peter first and then Donnie to speak to those points.

            PETER GEDDES: I can provide some information at a high level. When we were developing the plan that we have recently put together, one of the first things we did was look at what other jurisdictions had done across Canada around this issue. I will say that we’re not alone in this issue. Every province in the country has issues with abandoned mine sites because many of these operations pre-date modern environmental regulations.

            What we see is that virtually every province has done some work, but there’s really nobody that’s significantly farther ahead than where we are. What most jurisdictions are doing is accounting for the liabilities associated with these sites at this point in time. Some provinces like Quebec and Ontario have a much higher number of sites and much higher liability than we do. Everybody is now starting to turn their attention to it more in recent years. I wouldn’t say there’s any one jurisdiction that we see that’s way out ahead.

            DONNIE BURKE: I echo Peter’s thoughts in the sense that in planning the remediation - and that’s what our role is, to plan it in terms of how to address it - we have looked to other jurisdictions and what they have done, technologies they have used, best practices. British Columbia seems to be doing a little bit better in terms of the planning stage, but the act of remediation hasn’t started yet. We’re kind of on par with them. That’s constantly what we do. Even when we start to prioritize, we have looked to other jurisdictions in terms of how they prioritize their sites and how they plan them for assessment and the final step of remediation.

            TIM HALMAN: What are some of the best practices you’re seeing when you do that jurisdictional scan of other provinces? When you say best practices, could you outline two or three examples of what best practices are when it comes to this?

            DONNIE BURKE: The assessment is probably the biggest part, how you actually assess. CCME provides guidelines for assessing contaminated sites in Canada; it’s a recommended best practice. However, when we looked at them, they’re not applicable to all mine sites. They’re general sites. If you look at a gas station compared to a mine site in terms of the breadth of area that it covers, the different types of contaminants - you’re mainly dealing with your arsenics and possibly mercury as a contaminant concern.

Looking at those, what we’re trying to do is use the information that others have used to develop the assessment tool to properly assess these sites and prioritize them for government.

            TIM HALMAN: What’s the timeline for the development of that assessment tool? Obviously, that is critical. Once that’s developed, then you can really get going. Could you comment on the associated timeline with that assessment tool?

            JULIE TOWERS: We’re working through the assessment on the sites. I also wanted to remember to say, just because the terminology sometimes can get confusing - there are environmental assessments which are done, which are assessments of projects and planning assessments, and there are environmental site assessments. You’ll hear us use that term - that’s what’s typically used when you’re assessing a site around contamination. Two different terms.

            As far as the timing for working through that, I’ll turn it over to Peter to speak about our proposals.

            PETER GEDDES: The stage we’re at now is we have 69 sites that have been identified - a range of mine types - in the province. We’re developing what we call a risk matrix process, where we look at each of these sites and kind of run them through a range of factors we’d want to consider in terms of what would make them a high risk for a range of reasons - ecological, human health, or environmental. As we go through that process, what we would do is come up with a risk ranking for each of those sites which would help us decide which ones will be the ones that we’ll need to focus on first to do on-site assessments.

            In terms of the timing of that, we are at the stages of still developing the risk matrix. We recently got some feedback from the Medical Officer of Health of some factors that they wanted us to consider in terms of how we rank these sites. We’re very close to finalizing that. I think our plan is that we would have all the sites ranked within this fiscal year.

            TIM HALMAN: Certainly, it sounds like there are a lot of departments involved in the development of the plan moving forward: the Department of Finance and Treasury Board, Energy and Mines, Lands and Forests, Health and Wellness.

            With respect to the risk matrix process, am I correct in saying that there are a lot of different departments involved in the development of that risk matrix process?

            PETER GEDDES: I just want to correct my last point - I meant to say “calendar” year, not “fiscal” year, in terms of when that was done.

            In terms of the other departments that are involved, one of the things we decided early on when we started to undertake this exercise was, we needed to have input from a range of departments, obviously. We formed a cross-departmental advisory committee to deal with this issue. We’ve invited the Department of Environment to the table. We’ve invited the Medical Officer of Health. Nova Scotia Lands sits there as well, and the Departments of Finance and Treasury Board, and Energy and Mines. The Department of Energy and Mines has the portfolio for mine development in the province and has a lot of historical data on mine sites in the province.

            The goal of that committee, as we develop this plan, is really to give us input in terms of the strategy. For example, the Department of Environment would give us guidance in terms of ecological risks that are associated with sites, but also how to ensure we’re following the regulations as we move forward with this; the Medical Officer of Health, of course, on public health interests as we move forward; obviously, Nova Scotia Lands is giving us advice because they’re the project manager for us in terms of how the project will be managed over time; and Finance and Treasury Board because as these sites progress, we’re going to have to account for them.

            We have a range of folks there at the table who are providing us advice to make sure we kind of keep things on track and moving forward.

            TIM HALMAN: With so many moving parts, and so many departments working on this, is there a specific individual or designated department that’s designated to coordinate all of these meetings and so forth? I ask, because as you know nothing frustrates residents more when you don’t know who’s responsible for what and so forth. Perhaps you could clarify who’s leading the charge on this.

            JULIE TOWERS: There’s a reason I’m sitting here. (Laughter) The Department of Lands and Forestry has been directed to be the lead department around looking at the potential contamination on abandoned mine sites specifically. We’re leading that interdepartmental group.

            Peter is the lucky executive director because I’ve looked to him to bring his expertise because he worked in the Department of Environment for many years, as well as working at the Department of Lands and Forestry, to be the chair for that group.

            TIM HALMAN: Thank you for your response. With respect to the federal government, my understanding is they have a strategy for remediation of mines. To what extent will you be working with the federal government to develop these policies? What meetings have taken place? Could you outline the work that’s being done vis-à-vis the province and the federal government?

            JULIE TOWERS: I’ll start and then turn it over to Donnie Burke to add to it. You have to remember that under the Environment Act and Contaminated Site Regulations, the responsibility rests with the landowner. Hence the Department of Lands and Forestry as the owner of Crown lands has a responsibility.

            There can be sites where we’re co-operating - and I’m sure Donnie can provide examples - where the federal government may be involved. Technical expertise is a common one. Also in some cases, if there is a jurisdiction overlap for some reason, this particularly becomes an issue, as you can imagine when you’re dealing with coastal or marine environments. Sydney Tar Ponds would have been an example of that. That was a split jurisdiction, so both levels of government were involved in that. I’ll turn it over to Donnie to give you some examples.

            DONNIE BURKE: I guess as Deputy Towers said, Sydney Tar Ponds is a prime example of a federal-provincial agreement, but we do rely heavily on the guidance documents from CCME and other federal departments. Edwards Pond is one that shows up on our list as an example where actually PWGSC went in on behalf of the Government of Canada and was tied to the cleanup of the Princess mine sites, so there has been remediation done on that site. That’s one of the sites that may be a quick pick for us as coming off because there is a certificate of remediation from their consultants and signed off by the Department of Environment.

            Primarily what we deal with in terms of the remediation - our regulator is the Department of Environment on most of these sites. There are a couple of sites where we may have interaction with federal departments because we’ll be in potentially coastline areas - so you’re into the federal Fisheries Act. We haven’t come across that yet, but that’s kind of where we provide that technical ability to navigate that process.

            Some of my colleagues with Nova Scotia Lands, as you know, are involved with the Boat Harbour project, so we have a large federal-provincial relationship on that project. Some of our projects fall under green fund money as we speak. MLA Maguire will probably be asking about Harrietsfield later on. That’s one where we actually have some federal funding involved.

            What we do is, once we get our ducks in a row in terms of what the assessment says and what we have, we’ll look to who we have to engage and who we have to involve. That’s a big part of the stakeholder engagement piece that we’d look towards in terms of how we interact with the different regulatory bodies.

            JULIE TOWERS: Just to add clarity for folks - because we’re so used to it, we tend to use the short forms - CCME is Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. That’s where across all the provinces, territories and Environment and Climate Change Canada work together to set environmental standards, whether it’s water quality, air quality, et cetera. You’ll hear us say CCME a lot. PWGSC - that’s Public Works and Government Services Canada - is the department that often works with us.

            TIM HALMAN: Alphabet soup, right? As more information becomes available, how will the accounting estimates for the cleanup of Boat Harbour and the abandoned mine sites impact the financial position of the province?

            REMI MACDONELL: As we receive information that allows us to properly estimate the total cost of remediating a site, we’d refer to Section 16.2 of the Budgeting and Financial Management Manual, Liability for Contaminated Sites, and we would book an accrual for the appropriate amount of money.

            TIM HALMAN: Is the province exposed to litigation from neighbours - from the 63 mines - because of the lack of remediation planning? Could you comment on that?

            JULIE TOWERS: As I’m sure you’re all aware, any province is always subject to liability and litigation. There are no cases in play around these sites. There’s a very detailed - I’m not the one to give a legal opinion; it would be inappropriate here - but to be clear, there’s a lot of case law around where the responsibility lies.

            Certainly our focus is on the public land that we administer and manage. It’s related to Crown land specifically. We could not speak to liability around other lands.

            TIM HALMAN: Has there ever been an analysis done within the department to ascertain or potentially predict that liability? Or am I correct in saying there’s just ongoing conversations happening within the department to assess the potential of litigation?

            JULIE TOWERS: We do not assess the potential of someone wanting to bring a case against the province. What we do is about liability. That’s the section in our management manual that Remi MacDonell spoke to. It’s very detailed. It’s publicly available, which makes it very clear what’s considered to be contaminated and what the factors are that you take into account.

            Here are some simple ones for you that will help. These are the things that have to be considered for any site in terms of determining liability and, remember, that’s financial liability. First, an environmental standard exists; there has to be something it’s measured against. Second, contamination exceeds the environmental standard; you would need to have data to show you that. Third, the government is directly responsible, or it accepts responsibility. This could be a case where it doesn’t own the land but usually it’s where it’s directly responsible because it’s the landowner. Fourth, it’s expected that future economic benefits may be given up because the use of the land may be affected. Fifth, a reasonable amount to the estimate can be made.

That’s very much what we’re talking about. If you don’t have detailed environmental site assessments, you can’t get to what those potential assessments are.

            TIM HALMAN: I have the honour of representing Dartmouth East, which is right beside the Montague Gold Mines. Certainly in the next round, I’ll be having questions with respect to the Montague Gold Mines.

            Just a quick question: Is it too early to say how exactly that site may be addressed? Could you just briefly tell me: Where are we in terms of that assessment?

            DONNIE BURKE: We carried out the initial sampling last year and had our final report in July. We are out doing subsequent sampling now. It is a risk-based approach that we’re looking to take on these sites. In saying that, we have to look at what the levels are, what the effects are on the environment - human health, ecological risk. Those items are being addressed as we speak. I think there’s actually a crew sampling this week on-site - if not this week, the next week.

            Once that evaluation is complete, we’re only at a Class D estimate in terms of the estimation procedure: minus 20 per cent, plus 30 per cent - in that range. What we hope to do is refine the estimate to the point that we’re comfortable with what will happen. Right now, if you were to look at the report online, we’re looking at just taking the worst material and building a containment cell on-site, actually more or less encapsulating it so that it doesn’t have the ability to migrate off-site. It would be almost a landfill of sorts put on that site to immobilize the material from spreading to other parts of the environment.

            THE CHAIR: The time for the PC caucus has expired.

We went one minute over so I’ll give 21 minutes to the NDP. Ms. Leblanc.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: That’s very kind of you. So far it seems like the conversation has been about the 69 mine sites. As of March 31, 2019, the province had identified 127 contaminated sites, and I think 69 of those would be mines - 39 were identified as sites where environmental cleanup is likely or already under way. The province also identified an additional 63 abandoned mine sites for which no ability for remediation had been recorded, but that’s what we’re talking about.

            Within the mines, can you provide us with a breakdown of how many are in the category of unknown? The amount of contamination is unknown or there is a risk of future remediation. Do you have that data yet?

            JULIE TOWERS: A couple of things - one is, when you talk about the contaminated sites the province recognizes, each department is responsible for identifying and doing an annual report identifying any potential sites. I can speak to the ones that I know of through our department. Of those right now as part of that assessment that we talked about, where they’re going through the detailed risk matrix, is to do just that, to say there is data available or not available for a site. Some of them may have been treated at some point. Of those, I would turn it over to Peter to speak in a little more detail about the specific sites.

            Remember, of those mine sites, it’s a range of things. Some were historic gold mines, and those are the ones we know often had arsenic and mercury, which would be contaminants of concern. There are abandoned coal mines, gypsum mines, and a variety of other things like silica. They each bring their own profile.

            I’ll turn it over to Peter to speak some more on that.

            PETER GEDDES: Of the 69 mine sites that we know of - and I believe we provided in advance that list of sites for the committee - there are only two for which we have detailed analysis that has been filed under the regulations under the Environment Act: Goldenville and Montague. There are some other sites that have had some historic, academic, and other types of research done on them, but we haven’t done formal assessments on any of those other 67 sites so far.

            The exercise we’re into right now is to take those other 67 sites, run them through our risk matrix, and see where they land in terms of priority. It would be based on proximity to residents, ground- and drinking water supply, and all those kinds of things that would be flagged as a risk. Then we move to the stage for those sites of actually conducting - the deputy mentioned environmental assessment - environmental site assessments for those sites. There are different phases of environmental site assessments as well, but basically on-site testing to delineate the boundaries of contamination, extent of contamination, and the types of contaminants that are there. That then helps you to decide how much remediation is required and be able to order the sites in terms of which ones need to be addressed first.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: Then what about contamination on Crown lands that aren’t connected with mines?

            JULIE TOWERS: I’ll start and then turn it over to Peter, and Remi can add if he needs to. Remember I said that for years we have been handling sites as we know of them. Some of you may remember the Arrow or the Kurdistan. Those would be two common examples where there was material taken out and, in many cases, placed on Crown land. We have certainly learned a lot about the environment over decades and about how we handle materials. They can speak about some of those. When we talk about other sites, those are the ones. The province may have acquired land that, for example, used to have a gas station. We have a mix of those sites as well. I’ll turn it over to Peter to add to your answer.

            PETER GEDDES: In addition to the 69 mine sites, Lands and Forestry has around 12, I’m going to say, other Crown land sites that we track that have contamination on them or expected levels of contamination on them. They’re a mix of sites. Some of them are under active use. They’re leased. One of them is actually an HRM fire station property, and there is a plan by them to remediate that site. There’s the Stanley airport and a couple of other site; I don’t have the exact list in front of me. We do track them, and we have a plan to address those. They are accounted for annually in our list as well.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: Thanks for that clarification. The Auditor General described significant measurement uncertainty in terms of the process of assessing the sites. What can you tell us at this time about the costs of remediating the sites - do you have a ballpark cost that you’re working with?

            JULIE TOWERS: I’ll start and then Remi can add. This is where, again, remember it’s very clear under the accounting principles that you don’t book it until you have good data to back you up to get to your estimate, which is why we have the $48 million for the two sites that have been sampled.

I’ll turn it over to Remi.

            REMI MACDONELL: The breakdown is, based on the results of the work that Donnie talked about - we have $24.5 million booked for Montague mines and we have $23.5 million booked for Goldenville. That’s based on the costs from the consultant. So far this year, we project to spend by March 31^st about $850,000.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: I just want to make sure I understand it correctly - that by the end of the calendar year that Mr. Geddes talked about earlier, I believe he said, and correct me if I’m wrong, that the rest of the sites will be assessed by the end of the calendar year. Can we expect that more costs will booked by the end of the calendar year then for, say, next year’s financial statements?

            JULIE TOWERS: Yes - to be clear, he said that by the end of the calendar year, that’s the risk matrix. That’s where the departments collectively look through to see what we know about the sites and what we predict to be the relative risk. What that does is sets up a prioritization. For example, Montague and Goldenville were high priorities. What are the next ones?

            Until you go in to do the environmental site assessments, you don’t then put a cost estimate against it. By the end of the calendar year, we’ll have the list and say, these are the ones we need to go sample next - they are the highest priority.

            You have to think of this as a centuries-old problem that’s going to take years to fix, but we now have a systematic way of getting at it so that we’ll keep working away at these sites as they get identified for prioritization. Some of those sites we’re expecting will probably even come off the list, but we’ll be able to know which we tackle next.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: That’s really helpful. Would you agree then that it will be another year or another couple of years before you would have, say, the next five or six, or is it even possible to determine? I totally get that it’s a centuries-old problem that we’re now trying to figure out, but is there any kind of ballpark - are we talking a five-year plan? Any discussions around that yet?

            JULIE TOWERS: I wouldn’t try to estimate the time until we finish getting through the prioritization, the risk assessment. We’ll know by the end of the year. We’ll have a better sense, but it will take time to get it all.

            It would be inappropriate without data to make an assessment on how much contamination there may be, what types of remediation may be required and what time would it take. As you know, some of that remediation can be quite quick. It may be months and weeks, but some of them take years - Sydney Tar Ponds and Boat Harbour being examples.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: This is a huge project. It’s taking five departments and a number of people, but I’m wondering if you can talk about what staff resources have actually been committed to this giant project.

            JULIE TOWERS: Because it’s a priority, it’s built right into our business plan, for example. For staff, it’s about shifting their priorities to be able to spend some time on this. One specific example I can give is that the Department of Energy and Mines seconded or assigned a mining engineer to work directly with Nova Scotia Lands, to work on the risk matrix.

            Again, remember we spoke about how the Department of Energy and Mines has a lot of that knowledge about mines and how they functioned. So, we’ve put that dedicated resource in play, as well as the people who are doing it as part of their daily jobs.

[9:45 a.m.]

            SUSAN LEBLANC: Ten people, fifty people, three people?

            PETER GEDDES: Mr. Burke could probably explain the amount of resources that Nova Scotia Lands specifically puts into it. Besides the full-time position - the mining engineer who was transferred over from Energy and Mines to Nova Scotia Lands - another director in our department and I had it as part of our regular duties. I chair the committee. For the other departments, we call upon them every couple of months to be involved in meetings and provide feedback.

            I think what will change dramatically is when we hit the next step and once we’ve got a list of ranked risk sites and we take the plan to the next stage - which is, we now have to do some site assessments - that’s where the resource implications could change and we’ll have to re-evaluate it at that point in time.

            DONNIE BURKE: In terms of our resources, we have the equivalent of two FTEs working full time on mine sites and with probably half of another FTE spread amongst three or four people. We have a couple environmental engineers, a communications person, and public engagement consultants. We look at all aspects in terms of being a Crown corporation. We budget based on projects. We’re carrying the equivalent of probably two and a half FTEs.

            A lot of the heavy lifting that we do specific to the assessments - and Deputy Minister Towers was correct in correcting me - I always go back to saying assessments, but realistically we’re doing a matrix and evaluating the properties based on set parameters. So to carry out these evaluations, we’re on the planning side, but when we’re active on the sites we use a consulting team.

We have a consulting team on the Montague and Goldenville sites now, which is a team of four different consulting companies - more or less a consortium of them - that are providing all the detailed assessment work for us.

SUSAN LEBLANC: I’m only asking because I feel that if it is a priority for the department and it’s going to take until the end of December to get this matrix in place, and yet we know that we need to move on these things - especially places like Montague, and where there are going to be housing developments and people living near them, or maybe people are already - then obviously it’s an important thing to get a handle on. I wish I had been present at Budget Estimates for this department because I would have asked: How come there’s not more people? That’s fine, I absolutely appreciate the work that’s going into it.

Speaking of people near the identified sites, obviously people who are living near them will be worried about health and environmental impacts. In some cases, some sites are still being used for recreational purposes. Are the communities at this point being involved and/or notified as part of the process of prioritizing goes through?

DONNIE BURKE: Our evaluation matrix that I spoke about actually looks at those specific avenues of how the sites are being used currently. To set the guidelines for remediation, you have to know what it’s going to end up being in terms of the end use - similar to the Sydney tar ponds with the fact that we wanted a public park there. So you set up your remediation guidelines to satisfy that requirement in the end.

What we are doing right now is using that as part of our evaluation. We’re putting, for instance, a one- to two-kilometre grid on the map on the centre of these sites and mapping how many homes are close to that, how many domestic water wells. These all go in as risk factors.

Once we get to the evaluation matrix and start to look at moving to the assessment phase on some of them, the public engagement process is a huge part of any remediation project. We would be looking towards stakeholder engagement on each of the sites individually as time proceeds so that people know and they’re not afraid.

There is a significant amount of notification on some of these sites. Goldenville is a good example. They used to have a drag race or a mud rally there annually. The Department of Natural Resources in the day closed that down, put signs on the site notifying that there are human health risks there. Steps have been taken where necessary to make sure that people are aware that there’s a danger there.

With the exception of erecting fences, which you really don’t want to get into, given the breadth of these sites, but it’s letting people know. Montague would be a similar one in the sense that there were some active bike trails that people were told not to use. There is notification.

As you know, in the most recent local media, HRM has posted on the Barry’s Run site, which is just below, that there are human health risks associated with it. It’s a property that they own. In saying all that, public safety is the utmost impost importance, so of course that’s what we make sure is addressed first.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: That’s great that measures like that are being taken. I was going to ask later, how are the sites that are identified managed in terms of fencing so that people are protected. In terms of public engagement, is that a public meeting at a Legion hall? Is it knocking on doors? Is it letters? What does the actual engagement look like?

            DONNIE BURKE: We have provided some engagement pieces now. For instance, part of our work involves sampling in Lake Charles. The residents of the Lake Charles area would have received notices if they were immediately there. Every site we go on - Goldenville - our consultants are given letters describing what we’re doing with my number on the end so they can call me directly and ask, if they have any questions. That’s our first part.

            We do have public engagement specialists within Nova Scotia Lands and a communications specialist. Part of what we do when we get to that next step is planning that engagement, typical to what was done in Sydney tar ponds or Boat Harbour. It could be community hall meetings. Of course, there’s a lot of press on it of late too. Sometimes that’s a good avenue to get your message out as well. Our full intent is to get into these communities and actually provide people the opportunity to ask questions and hear the information.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: For the sites that you have looked at so far, is there anything that you can say about the potential of contamination in drinking water?

            DONNIE BURKE: We have looked - actually, this phase of assessment that we’re doing, we’re installing wells. MLA Halman will probably hear people saying there’s drill rigs on these sites. That’s because we’re going out there to actually do that. Our first blush on the sites was looking at shallow groundwater, just hand-driven piezometers to sample water. We’re going to install some wells on these sites to refine our estimates and better understand what the dynamic is with water.

The well-drillers portion of the Environment Act requires that wells be sampled. That data is posted. It’s public data. We have surveyed all that data. There doesn’t appear to be an arsenic issue. Arsenic would be the main contaminant concern on these sites where we looked at some well data. The imminent risk isn’t there, and previously, the Chief Medical Officer of Health a number of years back, the literature shows that there was some sampling done in some areas, and it didn’t appear to be an issue. That’s something we’re going to validate and verify to refine our estimates to do the remediation.

            THE CHAIR: Half a minute left.

            SUSAN LEBLANC: I have nothing for half a minute, but I will thank you so far for this conversation. In a second, I will turn it over to the Liberal caucus.

            THE CHAIR: The time for the NDP caucus has expired. Now we’ll go to the Liberal caucus for 21 minutes. Ms. DiCostanzo.

            RAFAH DICOSTANZO: Thank you to my colleague for allowing me to ask just one quick question. I know he has a lot more than I do.

            As I’m listening to you, I know that this is a century-old problem, and we’re cleaning up land that has been there and dirty for so many years, and we only started in the 1990s to really clean up.

            I really want to know what we are doing now for any new exploration and for mines, and what regulations we are putting in for private companies to save some money or allocate some money for continuous cleanup, and if they’re exploring and doing it right and they haven’t left us with a mess for the government to clean up, then they can keep their money. But if they do leave us with money and they just go bankrupt, are we forcing them to allocate money for cleanups?

            JULIE TOWERS: I’ll start, and Peter can add. Because we’ve both worked in the Department of Environment, we’ve seen this from different angles. With mining, and remember, there’s exploration and actual mining, what’s built in - and it is modern practice around the world now and certainly in Nova Scotia - is when there is a proposal for work, that’s when we use bonds. They’re designed as reclamation bonds.

So, I’ll turn it over to Peter to give you a bit more detail, but it’s about predicting. They have to have a remediation plan about how it’s going to be fixed up and there is a security against it to make sure that it can happen.

            PETER GEDDES: One important point to note is that many of these sites that we were dealing with - the list of 69 - would predate any environmental regulation whatsoever - or government’s involvement for that matter. The industry in and of itself has changed a lot regardless of government’s regulatory requirements. We’ve seen a lot of changes in practices in terms of how mining occurs.

            That said, we still have a regulatory regime to manage mine sites in the province. All mines in this province are required to undergo an environmental assessment. That’s the other type of environmental assessment the deputy talked about for a proposed project. So, there’s an environmental assessment required as well as an industrial approval - both issued by the Department of Environment before a mine would be permitted to go ahead.

            As part of that process, there is also a bond that’s placed, which the deputy referred to. That’s to cover liabilities associated with the site should the operation cease unexpectedly. Those bonds are actually set jointly by the Department of Energy and Mines, the mining group there, as well as the Department of Environment. They’re reviewed on a three-year basis, so they’re continually updated to make sure that they reflect the current status of the mine site and make sure that they can cover any of those liabilities going forward.

            RAFAH DICOSTANZO: Thank you, and I’ll move it to Mr. Maguire.

            THE CHAIR: Mr. Maguire.

            BRENDAN MAGUIRE: It has been a long time since I’ve been excited to speak about contaminated sites, but here we go. I will start by saying thank you to all of you. I’ve come to know most of you very well over the last few years. I feel like some of the questions being asked today, I could actually be sitting on that side because I could answer some of them myself.

            I can tell the committee that when it comes to public consultation, there has been an immense amount of public consultation when it comes to the C&D site in Harrietsfield. We’ve had multiple community meetings, dozens and dozens of emails to the community and community leaders to keep them informed. Every step of the way, every step of the process, you’ve been down to the community centre in Harrietsfield with pictures and information. It has been very clear, so I want to thank you. In fact, I will be the first to say that a lot of times the community hears before I do. I hear from the community the information that is going on. I want to thank you for that.

            I do have some questions about the overall process. First, I want to start by asking: How is it that we prioritize these sites? There are dozens, if not hundreds, of sites right across Nova Scotia. I heard you say the word “matrix,” but can you explain a little bit how when you look at the overall picture of these contaminated sites, how are you prioritizing them?

[10:00 a.m.]    

            DONNIE BURKE: There are two questions there - I’ll answer one that you didn’t ask. The reason why we prioritize, of course, is the fact that with a number of sites like that, we have to make sure that there are enough resources to do them, that we don’t flood an industry and that we’re able to sustain the work, first of all.

            The matrix evaluation starts to prioritize things based on human health effects, proximity to homes, proximity to wells. The foundation that we used actually, if you go back in your past life, the Halifax Metro Authority landfill was a project that I worked on early in my career.

A matrix was developed to evaluate where the landfill would go in HRM because nobody wants a landfill in their backyard. It’s the NIMBY syndrome - the common thing for any kind of environmental project. In saying that, you have to make sure that you’re following proper practices, making sure that you’re ensuring that the public is safe, that the ecosystem is stable and that you’re able to manage it.

That would be the whole premise of sustainable management or sustainable development and governance. That is why we do the matrix and that’s why we break it down into the different components - to be able to prioritize which is first.

The second phase of this evaluation matrix that we’re looking at is there are sites - as the deputy alluded to - that may be able to come off the site. Edwards Pond would have been a high-risk site that would have been on that. We do have information and literature to say that it is now cleaned up to a standard, so that’s one that can be removed from the site. We’re working through that and refining the list for the Department of Lands and Forestry to bring back.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: While we’re here, can I get a public update on the remediation on the C&D site in Harrietsfield?

DONNIE BURKE: Normally I would defer to the subject matter expert on that one, but I am actually am the director on that project. We are in the midst right now of actually issuing tender documents for the remediation of the Harrietsfield project - hopefully the end of this week or the first of next week. We have gone in there, removed all of what we term hazardous waste. Hazardous waste could be anything from light ballasts, thermostats in houses, because they potentially contain mercury. I always caveat hazardous waste assessments on that, so any demolition we have to do, for instance, we usually do a hazard assessment and remove that material - so we have done that.

There was a residual of waste left on the Harrietsfield site in the large containers that would have been on that site. There were roughly 12 containers - sea cans - that had material in them. We removed all that material. We’ve cut up all the steel and recycled that. Part of what we do, as being good stewards of the environment, is make sure that we do it sustainably as well. Where we could recycle things and process things, we’ve done that.

Now we’re in the stage of issuing the tender for the remediation. In essence, on that site it will be capping of the former landfill cell and demolishing the buildings on site.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Going through this process step by step with all of you - and to kind of quickly go back to the public consultation and the transparency on these projects - what I was most surprised about was, it was you as the project manager and Steve MacIsaac who is not here today, that were directly communicating with the community. Usually when you have that direct communication with the community it’s people who are further down on the rung. I was very impressed with that because the information coming to the community was actually the information that was coming from the top and it couldn’t be disputed. I do appreciate that.

One of the things that I wanted to talk about was pricing on the remediation of these sites. You and I have had this conversation and I think we brought this up a bit, but there’s a built-in cushion, we’ll say, on the price. It’s because - correct me if I’m wrong - so when people see, as you said earlier, give or take 10 or 20 per cent - I think sometimes that triggers alarm bells. Like, why is there such a big cushion?

One of the things that I learned through this process was, for example, that some of the stuff coming off the site could not be processed here in HRM or in Nova Scotia and may potentially have to be processed outside of province in Quebec and things like that. Also, with these historical landfill sites - and even with Harrietsfield, which is only about 30 years old - talking to some of the contractors on-site when you put your bucket in the ground, sometimes you find things that you don’t want to find.

Could you explain why you have these built-in percentages on all your projects or the majority of your projects?

DONNIE BURKE: There are two things in that question. What we do on the Goldenville and Montague sites is a Class D estimate. That’s a federal standard for estimation. As you get more information, you refine your estimates down to Class C, Class B, and Class A. That’s no different than if you’re building hospitals. Your initial blush is a Class D estimate based on what the need is, the footprint, and things like that. As you refine the process, you zero in on what the actual cost should be.

On environmental projects, there is a second thing that we usually carry: a contingency of sorts. The contingency could be on buildings usually - and I’m speaking to my past life, but you carry a 5 per cent or 8 per cent continency on buildings per se. Environmental, you want to look at 10 per cent to 15 per cent because just as you said, you drop a bucket in the ground and you could be pulling out something that nobody knew was there - because they are burying things and you don’t know what was buried there.

Specifically to Harrietsfield, we refined our estimates. Our contingency isn’t as great on that one because of predictability, so we did electromagnetic surveys. We used all kinds of different technologies to be able to look for the smoking guns, as a figure of speech, so that if there was an anomaly, hopefully we have enough information to be able to address it within the estimates.

Our goal is always to be as tight as possible because senior managers and legislative folks like yourself want a predictive amount and a budget that we have to establish. Our goal is always to get it as tight as possible, but we do allow for some contingencies there to be able to do the work.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: On the finance side of it, we have heard criticisms in the past - be it from other legislators or the public - on these projects when you see an original dollar sign: this project is going to cost X amount of dollars. Then we see the price as we get into the nuts and bolts of the project. It usually doesn’t decrease, but it will escalate - sometimes quickly and sometimes just a little bit.

Just for my own understanding, why give that original price and why not wait until the end to give the final price? Do you know what I mean?

REMI MACDONELL: According to the management manual section that I quoted previously, once we have become aware that there’s a liability and we are able to reasonably estimate, we are required to book it in the province’s financial records. For example, in this case, with a Class D assessment you would take the estimate that came from the consultant and add a reasonably big contingency to it in order to come to a reasonable amount of money to book the liability.

As these estimates become Class C, Class B, or Class A, the actual cost prediction becomes more refined; therefore, your continency gets reduced because you’re not into as big of an unknown area anymore. At the end of it, when the project’s complete, that’s the stage where you actually know how much you spent. The whole idea is that as the estimates become more refined that the contingency or cushion gets smaller.

BRENDAN MAGUIRE: My colleague to my left just whispered to me that it’s the same as building a house or anything like that. You start with your base price, and then things happen along the way.

            One of the questions that I had was: What is the relationship, deputy, between your department and Nova Scotia Lands? Can you explain that relationship?

            JULIE TOWERS: Think of it this way - remember I said responsibility under the Act rests with the landowner. The Department of Lands and Forestry and the minister have the mandate for Crown lands. We’re the landowner, and it’s our responsibility to follow through. Nova Scotia Lands is, in essence, the agent working for us to help do the overview and contract the environmental site assessments. They bring their expertise to the discussions, what they can do in-house and/or contract again outside. We’re the landowner, so that’s our role in it.

            BRENDAN MAGUIRE: That just actually triggered for me, when you talked about transparency earlier, another thing that we can lead to the transparency around this process and community engagement is the minister actually came to the community and was engaged in the community on this cleanup, to hear exactly what they wanted and what they needed.

            The question that I have is: We have all these different historical sites that have led to contamination - some of them have led to contamination. How did we get here? How did we get to the point where we have dozens of sites, whether they’re old gold mines or the C&D sites that we have - how did we get here?

            JULIE TOWERS: Maybe at 58 because I’m older than you, I can answer this question. (Laughter) It comes right back to what Peter was discussing. It’s a reflection of (a) knowledge and (b) priorities over years because like I said, a lot of these go back a couple hundred years. There were a lot of activities that humans did that they did not think about the consequences or know about the consequences.

A very simple one of that is people have heard about mad hatters - remember they used to use arsenic when they made a hat. People didn’t know about those potential impacts. It would have been the same with the gold mining. It was considered doing business if they even knew there were potential impacts. It really is an accumulation of a few hundred years. We have seen such a change since the 1960s in terms of people being more mindful of what products and chemicals get used in processing, the effluent requirement - whether it’s air emissions or water emissions.

I’m looking across at MLA Horne - because of his past work, he knows this very, very well. A lot of it has to do with knowledge and prioritization of society. We have come a long way in terms of our understanding and our expectations for how we interact with the environment. We’re really addressing that historical issue. The sites that become contaminated these days are the ones that are emergencies. A domestic oil tank ruptures because it runs out. We deal with those, and we’re very well-organized through the Department of Environment and through the companies that can handle those emergency spills.

            BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Mr. Horne will actually take the second part of this and question you with his expertise. What I wanted to know was, we have seen these former practices lead to where we are today. That to me means that your department and other departments like the Department of Environment and Nova Scotia Lands should be proactive and should be looking at other jurisdictions and looking at the practices that you’re using now and the practices that other jurisdictions are using, to ensure that we’re not leaving these kind of contaminated sites and these kind of environmental disasters for our children and our children’s children.

What are you doing to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not being repeated?

            JULIE TOWERS: I’ll start and if anyone else wants to add, let me know.

This speaks to, for example, the mining one that we spoke about, where not only do the projects have to be planned so that they do have built-in remediation plans before they can even be considered for approval. In other words, you start by being very clear on where you’re going to end up. Whatever the project might be - it doesn’t have to be a mine - it can be anything - that’s built in. That’s the reason we have environmental assessments as planning for projects so that you know what the site will look like from the very start to the very end.

[10:15 a.m.]

            For example, we have progressive reclamation. You don’t have to wait until something’s done operating, you can start working away at that reclamation and build that into it.

            Ironically, some of the mining projects now are even looking at if they can be cleaning as they go, if they’re operating in an area that had historical contamination. It’s another opportunity sometimes to clean up sites where it’s a private sector company investing to do that which helps generally in the province.

            THE CHAIR: Thank you. The time for the Liberal caucus has expired. We’ll allow the second round of questions, eight minutes to each caucus. We’ll go back to the PC caucus.

            Mr. Halman.

            TIM HALMAN: Mr. Burke, I just want to return to the crew that will be at the Montague site this week and some of the work that they’ll be carrying out. The crew, is that part of a government department or is that a private company?

            DONNIE BURKE: That would be a consulting group that’s reporting back to me and Nova Scotia Lands. We have a company led by intrinsic; they have an office here in Halifax. Wood is another one of the companies, and Klohn Crippen Berger and EcoMetrix. So that’s actually who are performing the physical work in the field.

            Of course, we manage how they interact on the site. For instance, we have to cross some private properties. In particular, it’s mainly Nova Scotia Power’s property with one of their transmission lines. Halifax Water has some property in that area. We’ve already started the dialogue with them to gain access across their properties to get onto the Crown lands to be able to perform the assessments.

            We could go across Crown lands but a lot of these are wetlands so, of course, we don’t want to forge through and destroy them. We asked them for access through their properties where they have roads or whatever established.

            TIM HALMAN: Is soil sampling for mercury and arsenic over the Port Wallace developments - is that happening?

            DONNIE BURKE: The majority of the soil sampling has already been done, so that would be in the report that you have in your package there. In the Port Wallace development area, the developer themselves have sampled on their own properties and made that data available to us. HRM have taken soil samples in the Barrys Run, which is the direct interface, the property abutting their properties. We had some sediment samples in there.

            We’ve worked collectively to share information where possible. Of course, being prudent and responsible for spending money, we didn’t want to double take samples where accredited consultants and laboratories were used. We have been sharing information between the different parties and communicating to some extent.

            TIM HALMAN: Will runoff water volumes flowing into Lake Charles be included in the work that the crew is doing?

            DONNIE BURKE: What we are looking at is the risk assessment aspect, or the human health risk assessments. We have a draft report that will be released in the coming weeks to HRM. We actually haven’t even briefed our client.

            MLA Maguire asked about the relationship. I guess I come from a consulting background and I look to Peter and Deputy Towers as my client from that perspective as a Crown corporation. Our prudence would be to brief the client first and then go out to the other parties. We’re in the midst of that.

            We do know that disturbing the sediments may have some kind of effect. We have informal conversations with different parties in the sense that would this have a net negative effect. I guess the big thing is there an engineered solution to be able to allow that development. It’s not within our mandate to assess right now, but I guess our group thought that there is potential for a lot of engineering controls to refine that flow and make sure that things operate effectively.

            TIM HALMAN: I’m sure you can appreciate that is one of the critical concerns of the residents in that area. By disturbing that soil, it’s going to have an unmitigated consequence for Lake Williams, Lake Charles, Lake Micmac and so forth.

You talk about the mandate of the sampling. Can you outline the core mandate - the outcomes you want to achieve with the crew being there on site?

            DONNIE BURKE: Our assessments are refined to Crown lands only. We have worked with HRM on the Barrys Run area, which is public knowledge. The sampling they’re doing now is specific to the Montague mine site on Crown lands only. The mandate would be to refine the estimate that I spoke about before so that we can proceed to the next level of estimates, so you’re refining your numbers to make sure that we are predicting the right amount and that the remediation can be done effectively and efficiently.

            TIM HALMAN: As this process unfolds, of course questions will arise so certainly let’s keep the channels of communication open as this process moves forward. What was the criteria you used to select those four different consulting companies?

            DONNIE BURKE: We actually worked with the TIR environmental services manager to develop criteria in order to establish an RFP to go out for this consulting service. These are the first two mines. We knew that there were more mine sites. That was the initial phase - we were to look just at Montague and Goldenville. As we started to look at them - and this would have been back in the Department of Natural Resources days - the other 69 sites were brought to our attention.

            Our thoughts are to get the most qualified, detailed-oriented team together to assess these sites. That would become more or less the go-forward strategy after that. What we tried to do is engage the best team possible to ensure that we had the best tools in the toolbox to do the initial assessment. That would predicate how we proceed with the other sites over time.

            TIM HALMAN: With respect to stakeholder engagement for both mines that we’re talking about, what does that stakeholder engagement look like? Are there town halls planned? What are the forms of communication to residents at both sites that you plan to get information?

            DONNIE BURKE: We’re in the infancy of that, but we have had planning sessions to talk about different ways we can engage. My experience has been with the Sydney tar ponds and Boat Harbour as well. With Boat Harbour, we had a lot of community hall meetings. We have a lot of consultation with the First Nations community there - Pictou Landing First Nations. They’re directly affected by the project. With the Sydney tar ponds, we used social media websites.

            Our goal has always been to be open and transparent, so no different than the fact that we post all our reports on our websites. Part of it would be possibly through social media, could be mail-outs, but definitely town hall-type sessions where we can actually get in these communities and engage with the public.

            A lot of times what we find on environmental projects is that you find out more from the public sometimes than you do from actually going out there and doing the sampling - you find just as much. I used to joke with MLA Maguire in the sense that with Harrietsfield they talked about to look at where things or people could be buried. It was the joke in the community, but at the end of the day, we truthfully listened to that. That’s the best way to find out this information.

            THE CHAIR: The time for the PC caucus has expired. We’ll now go to the NDP caucus with another minute added on, so it’s going to be nine minutes to Ms. Roberts.

            LISA ROBERTS: As part of the witness package for this committee, we received the terms of reference for the advisory group that Mr. Geddes is chairing. Can you tell me if the advisory group has actually met yet?

            PETER GEDDES: Yes, there has been one meeting so far. We actually had met with all the members of the committee. We had been meeting regularly anyways, before the formality of creating the committee. We have had one meeting so far. The second meeting is at the end of this month.

            LISA ROBERTS: I was a little surprised that the terms of reference appears to be from February 24^th, so it’s just very recently that the terms of reference were set down. Can you share why it took some time after the release of the Auditor General’s Report in October to arrive at the terms of reference for the advisory group?

            JULIE TOWERS: I know it may shock people but sometimes we’re more interested in getting the work done than putting it all down on paper. We had been working on this even prior to the Auditor General’s Report. This has been going on in one form or another for a number of years. It’s about formalizing some of that work and, as I said, getting to a systematic approach.

As Peter just said, they already were working across the departments. We have been doing this in detail for a number of months. This was formalizing that advisory group to make sure of that terms of reference. As people change departments sometimes, it’s really important to document their roles and to get that in place.

            LISA ROBERTS: The advisory group consists of representatives from government. Has there been any consideration of partnering with other groups and sources of expertise, such as universities?

            JULIE TOWERS: I’ll start, and Peter can add. Remember we said right at the start that one of the things to be mindful of is that there are some general principles around managing contaminated sites and the requirements to do so and the technologies, et cetera. Each site is a case-by-case basis. Peter can speak to some of the academic research and the interactions.

I think it’s really important as we move forward and prioritize these sites, start tackling them, gather more data, and interact with communities, it’s going to have to be customized as much as possible because there’s no one researcher, for example, or no one expert. You heard Donnie speak about how four different consultant companies are involved. The idea is to draw on the best expertise you can.

            I’ll turn it over to Peter to add to that.

            PETER GEDDES: Just to add to that, outside of the advisory committee, we have been meeting with Dr. Linda Campbell at Saint Mary’s University who has done a lot of research around some of these sites. Some of her students, I believe, gave a presentation to us as well at Nova Scotia Lands not long ago. We have had regular interaction. The department authorizes her access to some of these sites to maintain equipment and to do research work. We are in the loop and very connected with some of that work.

            In terms of the committee, I would not rule out any possibility in the future that the committee could evolve to include academia.

            LISA ROBERTS: Earlier Mr. Geddes talked about the risk-ranking matrix being done for the end of the year. That isn’t specifically in the terms of reference as a deliverable. I would like to ask what the deliverables are of the group. Also, I’m wondering about the transparency of this work as the analysis gets done and we know where the riskiest sites are. Will that risk matrix - I’m not sure if I’m using quite the right language - will the risk ranking of the 69 sites be made available to the public, and will the ongoing work of this advisory group be available to the public if they want to follow the progress?

            JULIE TOWERS: We’re going to tag team on this because there’s a lot of pieces to that. You may remember I said that this is identified as a priority in our departmental business plan. Automatically, what progress has been made will be incorporated into our accountability report. You’ll see that on an ongoing basis. This isn’t a one-year fix, as you can imagine - it will be ongoing. We’ll be looking for different ways to report on progress and not limit it to our business plan. It will absolutely be there, but it will go beyond that.

[10:30 a.m.]

            Once we have more information, absolutely we want to be able to share that. What form does that take? I think that’s very much what the risk assessments that are under way right now, and the advisory committee can help advise. What’s the best way to share this information in the sense of the type of information, that it’s not overly technical, but it’s easily understandable and people have access to that. Some people may want very technical details and others do not, so we’ll have to work on that. I’ll turn it over to Peter and then Donnie to add to that.

            PETER GEDDES: Just to add on the advisory committee and the role of that committee, it is advisory in nature. It’s not a project management-based committee or decision-making committee. We’re very much relying on those folks to bring their specific mandate and expertise as we develop this project, implement this project, to give us guidance from their perspective.

            I think I mentioned earlier that as we developed the parameters for the risk matrix, Dr. Strang provided a couple of parameters he would like to see included in that. The Department of Environment has been giving us guidance on the expectations under the Contaminated Sites Regulations for the department to follow. In fact, you’ll see in the terms of reference that there’s a note that the Department of Environment is reflected in there as having a regulatory role. Some of the conversation they’ll have limited involvement in. They don’t want to be connected to the planning of the overall framework, but rather just giving advice on the regulatory things. So everybody has a slightly different role, but it is purely advisory, rather than a project management-type of role.

            DONNIE BURKE: Just to elaborate and go back to add to what Peter said before, our first meeting of the advisory committee - two main deliverables that came out of that were first approval of the terms of reference because we have members of that group in there. Of course, the Department of Environment clearly highlighted the fact that they are a regulator. They can sit there, offer advice, but they can’t provide guidance - so clearly within their mandate.

            A second deliverable that we asked everybody about is, we gave them a draft of our risk matrix as we saw it - Nova Scotia Lands - that’s one of our deliverables for the project. What we did is ask them to look at it from their lens - the Medical Officer of Health through his lens to see if there are things he should add or enhance, the Department of Environment as well - to see if there was something there that they’re not providing direction, but they’re providing guidance, so are we missing something here.

            That’s kind of what we look to in terms of the advisory committee. Our goal is to perform the assessments. We have to sit down with the Department of Lands and Forestry folks - Peter in particular - and decide who is actually running the matrix. My initial thoughts - and Peter and I chat about this all the time - is it’s good to get a good cross-section of people to look at it. I could look at it strictly through an environmental lens with properties - so to have people’s different perspectives on rating. Part of what the matrix does is, we determine scorings per different elements and we provide all the information.

            The longest part of setting up this matrix was getting enough information so that I could even, for instance, offer to you enough information that you should be able to provide an assessment as well. That’s kind of where we want it to be. We’re almost there now. As Peter said, our goal is to have that done by the end of the calendar year so that we have a good cross-section of people doing the assessments. It’s the tool we would use, I assume - and I’m only assuming here - that especially if some fall of the list, then they come off the Department of Lands and Forestry contaminated sites list for next year as liabilities. All of that is publicly available once you see that. In saying that, they may even use the evaluation matrix as their prioritization model. That’s kind of what we’re doing it for, to allow that to happen.

            THE CHAIR: The time for the NDP caucus has expired. The final nine minutes goes to the Liberal caucus. We’ll begin with Mr. Horne.

            BILL HORNE: Just to continue on with what you’ve been talking about. I guess there’s some of the other sites that might be involved like the site in Waverley. It’s been a gold mining site since the late 1880s and early 1900s. Also besides Montague, you have the Oldham gold mines. I’m not sure if you’ve had a chance to do any pre-studies on those areas.

            I do know that the Oldham site in particular was gold mining for many years. Then there was a spill that one of the oil companies had, and they dumped a lot of their waste down the mines of Oldham. I don’t know if you’re aware of that. That happened in the 1960s, I think. That waste oil is still there.

            I’m just wondering if you have any comments on some of those sites. There’s also Gays River mine, which is a specific mine for copper, I guess. They had changed the Gays River to be able to control water flows. Could you just comment on those types of areas that are involved in your site assessments?

            JULIE TOWERS: For those sites that are already on the list, any information we already have would be part of why they’re even on the list for us to look at. Remember, we said we have to do the annual reporting to identify that.

            A lot of that information comes from two sources, actually: Environment itself, because as you know, the spills or use like that should have been reported - certainly that’s the case for post-1995; and the other is very much Energy and Mines.

            The mining group which was within Natural Resources certainly has a lot of that background. That’s one of the reasons we work so closely with them: they contain a lot of the historical records on sites. Our job at Lands and Forestry, really as the landowner, is to gather that information from whatever the sources may be in order to tackle it and work our way through the site.

            I can’t answer about those specific sites. That’s exactly the kind of information that either group would have, and I’ll ask Peter to speak to this. Either we know about it or we would want to know about it from any of the sources we can obtain it from.

            PETER GEDDES: Some of these sites have had past study work done on them and reports filed on them. For example, you mention the Oldham site. One of the things that doesn’t appear on our matrix for that is some description of the types of contaminants that are there. It includes the oil spill that you mentioned - not an oil spill, actually, but I think intentional dumping of oil on that site.

            We’ve got a lot of background data. A lot of this data has been gathered over the years through various sources. Some of it came from the Geoscience and Mines Branch, which is now Energy and Mines. We’re putting all that information into our matrix as we develop it anyhow: What are the past reports that we have, things that will help us rank those sites overall in terms of the priority for addressing them?

            BILL HORNE: Have you decided that gold mines were kind of the first wave of the contaminated sites to be looked at? Is there any specific reason it ended up that gold mine sites were first?

            JULIE TOWERS: It comes to what we knew about the sites. The reality is gold mines absolutely pop up just because of the nature of the processing that was traditionally used, particularly arsenic and mercury, whether it was naturally occurring or brought in as part of the processing. It’s pretty obvious to have a look at those sites.

            The other sites, for example the coal sites - we have a long history and knowledge about coal sites, and that is also why they’re on the list. The other ones which are those mix of different types, whether it’s gypsum, silica, anhydrite, or anything else. It really is because we knew something specific about those sites. We had some knowledge available to us to put them on the list.

            BILL HORNE: I guess there are a lot of open-pit types of gold mining in Nova Scotia right now that are approved. I’m just wondering how well you are looking at what’s happening in those sites, because they want to expand them, or they want to dig other areas of Nova Scotia and bring it to a site where it can be cleaned up and the gold formations are picked up.

            JULIE TOWERS: Maybe I’ve been around too long, but I was managing an environmental assessment group when the Tukoi gold mine first came along, and then Peter was managing it, and now we’re both in different roles - we can speak about that site.

Again, it comes back to the change when you get into modern mining, what the expectations are. They have to go through an environmental assessment process, and that planning includes what the potential issues are on-site or off-site. The historical gold mining and the processes used in modern gold mining, there are different processes. There are still chemicals used. Cyanide is currently used.

The requirements are significantly different in 2020 than they would have been in 1820. That means not only the transport to the site but any potential use on the site or coming off the site. That’s why you do need a very detailed not only environmental assessment but your industrial approval, which goes into all those details of handling and use and storage, et cetera. Why now? Sites that are operating, that’s why we do have things such as the monitoring wells we spoke about. We don’t just use those to determine what’s on the site, we use that to make sure nothing is moving on a site. Those would be built into sites like that, so whether it’s the main processing site or an area that’s being extracted.

I’ll stop there and turn it over to Peter if there’s anything I’ve forgotten to add to your question around the current gold mines, how they’re monitored and how we avoid contamination.

            PETER GEDDES: Not too much more to add. The deputy’s always right, so I’m not sure I should add much more to that.

I would say that a key part is all mines need environmental assessment, and all mines need industrial approval. I mentioned earlier that in an environmental assessment, a mandatory public consultation process is part of that as well. That would be something that would be very different from historic mines - that there’s an opportunity for the public to have input in terms of how mines are developed and operated over time.

There’s lots of new technology, and engineers at Environment and general compliance staff would look closely at those operations to make sure that they’re being operated in compliance with the Acts and regulations. One point that might be worth mentioning if you take a case like the deputy mentioned Tukoi gold project, which most people know as the Moose River gold mine project. Some of these newer operations actually provide opportunity to remediate old works in contamination. In fact, for that project, part of the environmental assessment approval included a requirement to deal with some existing contamination from the historic mines. So there are some opportunities there as well, with new mining projects, to address some past contamination.

            THE CHAIR: The time for the Liberal caucus has expired. We’re going to allow time for the witnesses to make any closing remarks if they so wish.

            JULIE TOWERS: I’ll make it brief, but I’ll circle back to the issue - that we’re addressing a historical issue that took centuries to develop and it will take us years to address all the sites.

I’m very comfortable that we’re on the right track and I’m very proud that we have tackled over the years some of the largest sites with the most issues, such as the tar ponds and addressing Boat Harbour.

It’s good that we’re on the path to address the next sites that are also contaminated but not as severely. We have a very detailed process. We’re very happy to share that and we are looking forward to getting these sites addressed. I think Nova Scotians will be proud of all of us for the work that we do to get this done.

            THE CHAIR: Are there any other remarks that any other witness would like to make? Again, thank you very much for appearing before us this morning. It was a very informative session, I’m sure, for those who had questions.

            With that, before we adjourn, there are a few items of committee business that we have to look after. The first one is correspondence. I think everybody received the correspondence from Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal. There was a request made at the January 29^th meeting that was sent to everybody.

            Also, we received a letter from Mr. Halman. It’s a request to call the Chair of the Forestry Transition Team before the committee. As there was no meeting at that time, members were polled to seek agreement to schedule the meeting. Unanimous agreement was not obtained so the meeting didn’t occur. That’s just simply a housekeeping item that was received and to make everybody aware.

            Another item of business - on March 4^th, the subcommittee met, and we talked about the issue of the audit at that time. A record of decision was distributed to the members, so we will require a motion to approve that record of decision. Do we have a mover? Ms. Leblanc.

[10:45 a.m.]

            SUSAN LEBLANC: I’m sorry to see that the decision at the subcommittee was to not proceed with an evaluation of the CAAF this time. As I said before in previous meetings, my experience at the CCPAC meeting in Ontario last year was a really good one. It was inspiring to know how functional Public Accounts Committees can be. I really think it would benefit our committee to undertake some kind of evaluation.

            In the attached letter from Speaker Murphy about the inquiry as to whether there are funds available - and I think I probably expressed this last time - I feel like that way of asking if funds are available may have pulled the rug out from under the whole idea in the first place, because if Speaker Murphy doesn’t know that this is something we’re interested in, then funds aren’t available because we never asked for the funds.

            He does say in the letter that if the wish of the committee is to submit a budget pressure in hopes of utilizing the service in the future, we can have that discussion. I would suggest that the committee come back to this topic, maybe at the next meeting, after some thoughtfulness about it and see if we want to make a request of the Speaker so that we can undertake some kind of evaluation. If we ask for him to consider the funds, it’s possible the funds will be available.

            THE CHAIR: Is there any discussion on that?

            SUZANNE LOHNES-CROFT: I left that meeting thinking all three Parties agreed to forgo it because we felt we were close to probably having shuffles within our own caucuses and also the possibility of a forthcoming election - I don’t know where that came from - but that there would be a different group of people sitting here. For $12,000, we felt that the taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook.

            TIM HALMAN: I think that’s a reasonable outline that my colleague has indicated. I think this motion should go forward as is.

            THE CHAIR: What we’re asking for is a motion to accept the record of decision from the subcommittee meeting. Do we have a mover? Mr. Maguire.

            BRENDAN MAGUIRE: Just to clarify, is this motion to ask if we should spend $12,000?

            THE CHAIR: No. The decision is that we don’t at this point, but we left the door open because of the fact that the Speaker did say in his reply that if the committee wanted to at a future date. We still don’t have a mover.

            LISA ROBERTS: I move that the committee accept the record of decision from the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedures from March 4^th.

            THE CHAIR: Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

            The motion is carried.

            Just one more thing, I guess, is the next meeting. That’s going to be taking place here in the Chamber on the 8^th of April. From 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. we’ll have an in camera briefing and from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. we have the Nova Scotia Health Authority concerning cybersecurity and fraud risks from the October 2019 Report of the Auditor General.

            Ms. Roberts.

            LISA ROBERTS: Just for my benefit, because I’m emerging from these long days in the Legislature, I believe that the follow-up report on the AG’s findings from 2015-16 is to be released in March. Can I just confirm that and ask for clarification about when we’re going to have a chance to examine that report?

            THE CHAIR: March 24^th is the follow-up report from the AG.

            Ms. Langille.

            KIM LANGILLE (Legislative Committee Clerk): I have from the Auditor General that their follow-up report will be coming down on the 24^th. We have them scheduled to come in on May 13^th. That’s the next available meeting date.

            THE CHAIR: Okay. So again, our next meeting then will be on the 8^th of April. It’s the Health Authority concerning cybersecurity and fraud risks. This was a meeting that was postponed earlier - I think that was the one that was cancelled previously, so it’s just a reschedule. The CEO of the Health Authority wasn’t available at that time.

            I guess that brings everything to a close. I’m going to have to start allowing a few more minutes on the second round of questioning, I guess. You never know how long the closing remarks are going to be.

            Ms. Roberts.

            LISA ROBERTS: Just before we break up, because we have a couple of minutes. I would like to think that we might be open to scheduling an additional meeting if the follow-up report brings back several substantive issues for us to discuss.

            Right now, we have in the past had follow-up audits that have led to multiple departments being called to discuss recommendations that are not complete. We kind of don’t know until it arrives, but I find it unfortunate that that report will be released on March 24^th and we don’t get to see it until a month and a half later.

            Maybe people could think about whether they would be open to that at the April 13^th meeting, having a conversation about whether we might schedule a second report in a month to hear from the Auditor General so that we might then schedule relevant departments.

            THE CHAIR: You’re asking everybody to just consider it for discussion at a later date, right?

            Okay. If there is no further business, we stand adjourned. Thank you all very much.

            [The committee adjourned at 10:54 a.m.]