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Environmental group stops recovery operation

Environmentalists dubbed it a ticking time bomb, and nobody knew when — or if — the Irving Whale oil barge would release its dangerous cargo. Toxic discoveries, legal delays and spiralling costs would all ensue before the Irving Whale saw the light of day — 26 years after sinking off Prince Edward Island in 1970.

It's the biggest twist in the Irving Whale saga -- work to raise the barge has stopped, at least temporarily. A Quebec environmental group, la Société pour vaincre la pollution (SVP), has been granted a three-month court injunction to halt the operation which has been underway for much of the summer of 1995. The SVP is concerned that PCBs in the barge's heating system could leak into the ocean, and wants more testing done before work continues.

Reporter Leslie MacKinnon tells the story, pointing out that the injunction effectively means the barge will remain on the ocean floor for at least one more year, because there are only a few weeks each summer when the weather is calm enough for a job like this. It also means the PCBs -- which the anti-pollution group wants out of the ocean -- will remain for another year too.
. La Société pour vaincre la pollution (in English, Society to Overcome Pollution, or STOP) is a small Montreal-based non-profit environmental group that was founded in 1970. It's concerned mainly with water pollution and industrial waste, and often works with other environmental groups. In the case of the Irving Whale, SVP worked with another environmental group, le Regroupement madelinot pour la protection du Golfe, to file the injunction.

. An injunction is a court order which prohibits someone from doing some specified act. The SVP sought its injunction on the grounds that the presence of PCBs had not been accounted for in the original environmental assessment, and the judge agreed.
Medium: Television
Program: Prime Time News
Broadcast Date: Aug. 21, 1995
Guest(s): Dominique Barsalou, Daniel Green, Hugh Hall, Clifford Lincoln, Bill Scott
Host: Nancy Wilson
Reporter: Leslie MacKinnon
Duration: 2:27

Last updated: January 31, 2012

Page consulted on April 2, 2013

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