Every industrial city has a Frederick Street, if we look back to the industrial age there was a transition from a economy based on agriculture to one on manufacturing and the most exciting aspect was a steel mill. The steel allowed for rails to be made for the railway, steel for automobiles and buildings. It was an era which is celebrated in the accomplishments of industry. The down side of the era was for a long time, the pollution or excess materials which accompanies the industrialization was considered a by product of the great age. If the smokestack is pumping out smoke, jobs are being created and that is a good thing. As the economy goes up and down, in many areas of the country that is still a good thing. If the economy has moved to a more service based, that attitude has changed. In the book Frederick Street, Life and Death on Canada’s Love Canal by Maude Barlow and Elizabeth May, HarperCollins, Toronto, 2000.  The book outlines the steel industry in Sydney, Nova Scotia and for a long time – given the area was very dependent on the steel mill, what the steel mill did or did not do was accepted by most people. The by-products that was dumped into ponds, hopefully the oceans would clean it (it does not), and the air pollution caused those living closest to the plant to have high cancer rates and lower life expectancy than those living further from the plant. The big issue is who should clean up the pollution, given the large expense and cleaning up the pollution does not necessarily make money for the steel mill. It can create spinoff jobs, it can create better living conditions, longer lives but it does not directly make money for the mill and the mill was never very profitable anyways.

The mill was located where it was because of the abundance of raw material (inexpensive to transport) to make the steel in the first place. The authors detail the number of grants from the government to assist in the operations, which should mean the government is partly responsible for the clean up. However, if you think about 25 to 50 years ago, many people did not know the affects of chemicals or if they did know they did not know how to clean it up. Solutions of leave it alone but do not add more and bury it (out of sight, out of mind); dig the mess up and treat it somewhere else (someone else’s problem) or burn it (however that has it is own problems – dispersing the material over a wider area is not the best solution). Just a few years ago and years for waiting for the steel plant to close and the senior levels of government disagreeing on who should pay and how much? what should be the cap? in the end it was a 50 – 50 ratio. A cement like material was poured into the ponds to thicken it. Then a tarp over the harder material, dirt was put on top and now the old ponds are a green space for the community to enjoy.

A lesson to be learned is while everyone in government will say there should be something done, actually getting it done is a huge task. An interesting story was in one of the homes, stuff was coming through the basement. To clean it up, the building people asked the government what precautions would they need to do the work, the government supplied the answer. It was interesting, those in charge of compensation allowed people to live in the homes, but contractors needed high protection to do the work. Insurance whether it is government or private never want to set a precedent or offer higher claims.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, often times because of their history, dividend paying stocks are involved with pollution and what should you do? When politicians talk jobs, jobs and jobs, that does not mean pollution and its effects are at the highest priority levels. However many of workers are now in service sector which means they do not see the pollution aspects just the wage aspect of jobs, jobs, jobs. For companies there is a balancing act to be a good citizen for their employees and shareholders live in the community and making money for their employees and shareholders. Every year there seems inventions of how to minimize pollution and that is a good thing. The issue often is money – there never seems enough for the company to pay and if you can not pay, sending the issue through the courts will help delay things for someone else to make the final decision.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions