Laid to Waste — Boat Harbour Cleanup Plans Gone Stale
A photo of the single-lane bridge still hangs in Doug MacKay's house. Photo provided by: Doug MacKay
Doug MacKay and his friends pile into a small boat and push off Nova Scotia’s Northumberland shore, fighting against the whirlpool current when they near their favourite inlet. The outboard motor, throttle wide open, keeps them stationary on this warm August day at the mouth of the inlet, where the water flows into the strait.
The group rests for a moment under a single-lane bridge build during the horse and buggy days. MacKay grabs a paddle from the floor of the boat, finds a beam under the bridge, and pushes the boat further into the mouth of the inlet. Finally, he reaches a weak point in the current and the boat crawls through the water on its own, slowly accelerating. They’re off to Pine Island. As MacKay and his friends approach, the strong, fresh smell of pine intensifies. They cut the motor. The remaining momentum is enough to bring them gently to rest on the muddy shore.
When he was 11, MacKay learned to swim in this body of water, known as Boat Harbour. Now as a teenager, he comes back here in summer to enjoy the simple pleasures of nature. He and his friends dig clams and cook them in salt water over a fire on the shore. They swim, explore and do the things any kid would do before the novelty of the summer holiday fades.
But then the memory itself fades, carried away on the swift current of the more than 40 years since Boat Harbour died.
“It was such a pleasant place,” MacKay, now 75, recalls. “It was so heartbreaking to see how it was totally laid to waste.”
A photo taken in the late forties of Doug Mackay's neighbours, the Frasers, rowing in Boat Habour. Photo provided by: Doug MacKay
Through 1966 and 1967, the Nova Scotia water authority turned Boat Harbour into an industrial waste treatment lagoon. It was part of a deal to build a new Scott Paper Company pulp mill at nearby Abercrombie Point.
On Nov. 14, 1967, 25 million gallons (112 million litres) of mill waste began sluicing into the once-pristine waters every day, changing forever the character of the land. The transformation profoundly affected residents, including those who live on the Pictou Landing Mi’kmaq First Nation that hugs the shores of Boat Harbour.
“I see this situation as people coming into our backyard and literally poopin’ in our yard. I can’t describe it any other way,” said Jonathan Beadle, a community activist on the reserve who has spoken out against the water pollution for years.
“This is one of Nova Scotia’s dirtiest little secrets.”
While much has been done to improve the pulp mill waste in the 42 years since then, the fine sediments of Boat Harbour are contaminated with some of the most dangerous substances known to science, creating a legacy of toxic pollution that haunts the area to this day. There are no fish because there is no oxygen in the water. The provincial and federal governments have spent millions on environmental and health studies and tens of millions more to compensate the first nation, but repeated attempts to fix the mess have failed. Local residents, some living a few hundred metres from Boat Harbour, fear for their health. And because it was created by the province, Nova Scotians still own the place and are responsible for cleaning it up.
MacKay has lived all his life in Pictou County and his property borders Boat Harbour. He built this place in 1958. He sits in his kitchen, black and white photos of the formerly idyllic Boat Harbour spread across his small dining table.
He was snowmobiling with friends on the day he realized it would never be the same. “I looked behind me and black water was curling up in my track,” he said.
It was the winter of 1967.
MacKay recalls pointing his sled back towards the shore and feeling the back begin to sink. He jumped off.
His feet broke through the ice but, somehow, two feet below, he found solid footing. He then realized he had been snowmobiling on top of the wastewater from the mill. A strong wind had carried it across the icy surface of the lagoon and a thin new layer of ice formed on top. MacKay had been sledding on top of black, foul-smelling mill waste that now coated him up to his knees.
MacKay at the Boat Harbour aeration lagoon. Photo: John Packman
It was a far cry from what local residents had been told would happen before the mill opened. “(Officials) told us in the meetings they had at the CNR Club…that, ‘yeah, the water might be black or discloured, but you could drink it.’ Yeah, we were all told that” MacKay recalls.
Soon, those same residents were up in arms, calling public meetings about the treatment lagoon in their backyards. The province appointed consulting firm Rust and Associates to investigate and letters from the public poured in. One, dated March 22, 1970, came from Dr. Joseph B. MacDonald, a physician practicing in Stellarton, not far from Boat Harbour. He had written to the government before the pulp mill opened, condemning the plan to use Boat Harbour for waste treatment.