Algoma Steel's CEO came to city council on Monday to offer an update on the company's electric arc furnace project, but Michael Garcia ended up fielding questions from the mayor and members of councillors about a series of chemical spills that have occurred in the past five years.
Immediately after Garcia's presentation to council, Mayor Matthew Shoemaker asked if the CEO could address the spills, why they are happening and why they seem to be occurring more frequently and what is being done to mitigate them.
Garcia told council that his company cares for the environment and is extremely sensitive to the waterways adjacent to the steel plant.
Under normal operations, said Garcia, water enters the company's basin and is released into the St. Marys River. In the case of the most recent July 2 spill, said Garcia, a cloudy discharge was observed.
"As soon as that cloudy discharge was noticed we stopped immediately discharging from the basin, notified the Minister of Environment and began testing. The pH never exceeded the range of what it needed to be," said Garcia.
Garcia told media the company's root cause analysis team is working to identify the elements released in the spill and its source.
He noted Algoma Steel is responsible to conduct operations in compliance with its operating permits from the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP).
"Any time we deviate from that, we have responsibility to report," said Garcia. "In this instance, the pH testing wasn't outside of normal levels but obviously a cloudy discharge isn't normal and so we immediately took action to stop discharge from the basin."
Corey Gardi, councillor for Ward 5, asked Garcia if Algoma Steel has any form of marine response on site that could be deployed immediately in the case of a spill.
"We don't have our own marine response unit, our process is to immediately notify the proper government authorities as well as our important community stakeholders, like the city and and the First Nations tribes in the area," said Garcia.
Responding to a followup question from Ward 3 Coun. Angela Caputo, Garcia said it could take hours for the ministry to respond to a spill once reported.
"I would consider that something that Algoma Steel should consider," said Gardi of a marine response unit. "I think corporations such as yours, who pose an imminent risk, to the degree that you can should have a marine response capability commensurate with that risk. That's my opinion."
Caputo told Garcia she agrees with her colleague that having equipment on site to mitigate the effects of future spills is a good idea.
Ward 2 councillor Lisa Vezeau-Allen asked Garcia about what length the company goes to in reporting of spills to local First Nations.
Garcia responded that Algoma Steel strives to have a perfect environmental record and it disappoints him that it falls short of that goal.
"I want nothing more than to be perfect from this point forward and that is what we're trying to do, but the fact remains, looking back, we haven't been perfect and we have to be open and honest about that," he said. "We need to build relationships. We need to be able to pick up the phone anytime there's a slight disruption, like we spoke about on July 2nd, and call the leaders of each of the tribal councils, to call the mayor, to be completely open and honest so that at the same time that we're contacting the ministry, we're contacting all of our important stakeholders and there's no sitting on on bad news."
He added: "Hopefully going forward we're only going to have good news, but we have to be open and honest about how are we doing, but we have to be passionate about being perfect because that's what we want of ourselves and that's what everybody that we live with in this community expects of us."
Speaking to media immediately after his presentation to council, Garcia said any chemical spill into the environment is too many.
"Any spill is a serious event and our goal is to have zero," he said.
Asked if the company could report any future spills directly to the community, Garcia noted that information is in the public domain as soon as it is reported to the ministry.
Aside from the most recent spill, the MECP has identified seven other significant chemical spills from Algoma Steel since 2019.
The ministry laid environmental charges against Algoma Steel for a series of chemical spills that occurred in June of 2022. Those charges have not yet been tested in court.
Last October, Algoma Steel pleaded guilty to charges related to a Oct. 18, 2019 chemical spill when unknown amount of flushing liquor to ground, flowed to site drains then to the main water filter plant that discharges to the St Marys River. The company was fined $150,000 plus a 25 per cent victim surcharge.
That followed another spill that occurred two weeks earlier on Oct. 1, in which about 220 litres of wash oil spilled to the ground, flowing into the boat slip. No charges were laid in that incident.
In response to recent questions posed by SooToday to city councillors about the spills, Gardi said Algoma Steel has to 'do a much better job mitigating their impacts on the environment.'
"The impacts on the river are specifically concerning to me," said Gardi. "They seem to be semi regular events."
Gardi said, in his opinion, Algoma Steel does not do a good job keeping the public informed about the spills.
"Algoma’s management often says safety is their first priority," said Gardi. "That notion should be extended to their efforts to protect the land, water and air."
Ward 2 councillor Luke Dufour told SooToday that Algoma Steel, with the support of significant government grants, is spending a large amount of money on modernizing its operations.
"With what I would hope is the goal of preventing future environmental damage," he said. "I think any spill is bad news for the community and bad news for Algoma. No one wants to live next to contaminated water."
Ward 1 councillor Sandra Hollingsworth told SooToday she and city staff take the environment seriously.
"Perhaps it is time for Algoma Steel to attend council to provide us with an update on their green strategy – not just the arc furnace, but other methods that are using to protect our precious sensitive environment," said Hollingsworth.
She said the steelmaker should offer environmental updates to council 'at minimum twice a year.'
"Their impacts directly are a concern for me," said Hollingsworth of the steelmaker. "But let us not forget about our neighbours down the river and surrounding area such as Garden River, Echo Bay, Laird, Prince Township, Wawa and so forth. We (Sault) is the hub, however the spokes are our neighbours which are as important as well."