A visit to Queen’s Park was all positives for Gogama Fire Chief Mike Benson, but a meeting he had afterwards may bring a breath of fresh air to their fight for a clean ecosystem.

Benson says they ran into Dr. David Suzuki, an award winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster.

While talking, Benson said Suzuki expressed a keen interest in visiting the community and checking out the site where over a million litres of crude oil spilled into the Makami River in March 2015.

No date has been set as of yet, as talks are still in the early stages.

On the Toronto visit, Benson says officials presented a petition of nearly 1,300 signatures.

This, to try to gain government support for the Ministry of the Environment to require CN Rail to continue the clean up process of Gogama’s soil and water ways “until residents are assured of clean and safe water for themselves, the environment and the wildlife.”

As it stands, Timmins city council, the Algoma District Municipal Association and NEOMA have all passed resolutions in support of this.

Benson says the Minister seems to be coming around on it, adding the Ministry and CN knows there’s poison and areas “well above Ministry standard.”

However, as Benson adds, the two for some reason “can’t come to an agreement how to clean it.”

“I think they went in there last year with back hoes and dug down 35 centimetres and they used their manual dredging and it’s the same area that has the highest concentration of the soil,” says Benson.

CN Rail has long maintained that their work in the area is continuing, and held site tours at the end of September.

(The latest CN update from September 23rd can be found HERE.)

“They say they’re worried about the ecosystem, but they already took 35cm of sediment out there,” Benson said, “So another few centimetres or even another 35 is not going to change that ecosystem.”

The fire chief maintains that Gogama residents, along with the nearby Mattagami First Nations are serious, and will not go away.

“We’re just going to keep stepping it up from here.  We’ve got a few things planned,” he said.

“We’re not letting them get away with this.”

 

Filed under: Local News