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WCEL
> Issues > Toxics
BC has made some progress controlling environmental damage
stemming from toxic chemicals since the 1990 publication of our
three-volume Report on Toxic Real Estate. Updates to the Waste
Management Act, new Contaminated Sites regulations and a revised
Pesticide Control Act are a few of the advances BC made in the nineties.
Despite rapid increases in releases of toxic pollution from BC industry, despite a backlog of contaminated sites in BC, and despite compliance problems, the BC government is cutting enforcement staff and proposing legislative changes that will de-regulate key environmental protection regimes and make effective environmental protection harder than ever.
Contaminated Sites
The BC government manages over 2,000 contaminated sites on public land, most created by industrial activity when there were few controls on pollution. Thousands more exist on privately-owned property. Now the BC government is planning a significant rollback of the modern-day rules for managing and cleaning up contaminated sites, reducing industry responsibility for cleaning up sites that they polluted, and reducing clean up standards. West Coast staff lawyer Mark Haddock is leading the fight against weakening of BC standards.
Publications
Waste Management
The Waste Management Act is one of BC's most important laws for
controlling pollution. Recent amendments eased controls for the
mining and oil and gas industries.
On September 21, 2002, the BC government announced a sweeping review of the Waste Management Act. The government's objectives do not include ensuring accountability for environmental protection or ensuring transparency or effective public involvement in decisions that affect them. Current proposals massive reductions in the public's right to challenge polluters, reductions in government's ability to require site specific protection, and reductions in the enforceability of government regulation. For British Columbians who care about pollution discharged into our water, air and on our land the government's plans could be disastrous.
Publications
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