Media Release for June 6

The Federal President of the Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke New Democrats has called for an investigation into the recent spill of 20,000 litres of diesel oil into the Ottawa River down river from Mattawa.

Federal President, Sue McSheffrey, noted that communities all along the Ottawa River including Deep River, Petawawa, Pembroke and others draw their drinking water from the Ottawa River – as do a great many cottagers. McSheffrey said that these communities were given no warning by the Ottawa Valley Railroad (a subsidiary of a US company, Rail America) that a spill had happened and no indication of follow-up action. The company also delayed in informing federal and provincial officials for over six hours after the derailment.

Federal and provincial officials have also been less than helpful to communities trying to deal with the spill. Numerous calls from municipal officials were either not returned, passed on to other ministries or responded to by “no comment”. When asked by township officials from Head, Clara and Maria, the municipality where the oil slick is now located and asked what do we tell residents and cottagers who draw drinking water from the Ottawa River, Ontario Ministry of the Environment officials responded “don’t tell them anything”. Ministry officials finally contacted the municipality late Friday afternoon with an e-mail update of the situation.

This is just not good enough. “Residents of Renfrew County deserve better. We deserve political representatives who will go to bat for us when things like this happen. Why haven’t Cheryl Gallant and John Yakabuski stepped up and made sure the federal Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans and the provincial Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Natural Resources do their jobs?”, said McSheffrey.

McSheffrey is calling for an investigation into how the derailment happened, why it took so long to report the spill, the adequacy of the clean-up and why federal and provincial ministries refused to inform or help local municipalities deal with the spill?

We deserve better.

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