From 1962 to 1970, an uncontrolled mercury discharge of between and from the Dryden Mill's chloralkali plant in Dryden into the headwaters of the Wabigoon River in the Kenora District of Northwestern Ontario occurred. It was described as "one of the worst cases of environmental poisoning in Canadian history." The contamination poisoned many people in the Grassy Narrows First Nation and Whitedog First Nation communities.
The Wabigoon River forms a vast river system with the English River—which includes many lakes and tributaries—and together they flow west to the Winnipeg River. This aquatic ecosystem had extensive mercury contamination by 1970, leading to the closure of the commercial fishery and some tourism related businesses. The glacial clay of the area is believed to have facilitated the bioaccumulation of mercury in the ecosystem.
Clay lake, the first major lake downstream from the Dryden mill, had extremely high mercury levels in predatory fish such as the walleye. These fish, which have been a staple food of First Nations people for generations, became unsafe to eat. Grassy Narrows and Whitedog First Nation communities were severely affected. For generations, many suffered with symptoms of mercury poisoning, including Minamata disease. An expert report in 2016 confirmed that the Wabigoon River was "still highly contaminated" and that "it can be cleaned safely".
The Dryden chloralkali plant and the nearby Dryden Pulp and Paper Company were both subsidiaries of the British multinational, Reed International.
Background
Mercury poisoning Prior to the 1950s, the "scientific community was unaware of the effects of methylmercury on humans". In a 1958 article in The Lancet, two medical doctors reported their findings which confirmed a "link between methylmercury contaminated fish and human neurologic symptoms." Their research focused on what was then a "mysterious nervous illness" first noticed in a human in 1956 in a fishing village in Minamata, Japan. Odd behavior in cats in that area, later found linked to a strange neurologic condition, had been observed at that time. Although the first affected human entered the Chisso factory hospital in 1956, the disease had already reached local epidemic proportions by that time. A 1957 Kumamota Medical Journal called the condition Minamata disease.
A 2017 Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) noted that while investigations in Japan had been proceeding in the 1960s and 1970s, a similar case of a local epidemic of mercury poisoning was unfolding in Northern Canada. By 2017, however, in Canada, problems have left the Grassy Narrows First Nation still grappling with the "ravages of mercury contamination".
A 2016 CMAJ article on managing mercury exposure in Canada, said that the current clinical guidance on fish consumption is "poorly adapted to the circumstances of geographically remote northern communities, for whom mercury exposure may be greater." The article said that the fetus is especially at risk to "deleterious neurologic effects" of the toxic effects of mercury poisoning. The authors said that "most Canadians are exposed to mercury through diet, specifically fish consumption. Catherine Pirkle's team of researchers said that in northern indigenous communities there is "highly prevalent food insecurity" that is "associated with a rapid transition toward store-bought foods and decreasing access to local natural resources". The article said that current publications regarding the recognition of "clinically important mercury levels and appropriate interventions" is inadequate in dealing with "remote northern communities for whom mercury exposure may be greater."
Grassy Narrows First Nation
The semi-remote Grassy Narrows is one of 28 First Nations within the Grand Council Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty No. 3, a sovereign Anishinaabe Nation. The Grassy Narrows reserve is less than downstream from the Dryden mill. The Whitedog reserve is several hundred kilometres further downstream. Both First Nations communities were severely affected. For generations, many suffered with symptoms of mercury poisoning, including Minamata disease.
Contamination in Ontario
Starting in the 1960s, the Canadian federal government began to take action regarding mercury contamination in fish. The "first investigation of mercurial contamination" in a First Nations community took place in the fall of 1970 on the Grassy Narrows and Whitedog (Wabaseemoong) reserves. The government knew that Reed Paper Group's chloralkali plant, established in 1962, had discharged over 9 tons of metallic mercury into the river system. In addition, an article said that the majority of inhabitants consumed three meals of fish daily during the spring, summer and fall as they were "known to be wholly dependent upon fishing, hunting, guiding, and forestry."
From 1962 to 1970, the Dryden Chemical Company's chloralkali plant, which was associated with the nearby Dryden Pulp and Paper Company—both subsidiaries of the British multinational Reed Paper GroupIn a 1964 journal article, the Reed Paper Group was described as an international organization with 24,000 employees globally and manufacturing interests in the UK, Canada, Norway, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand, with an output of 1,650,000 tons of paper, among other products. p. 285—discharged approximately of mercury into the Wabigoon-English river systems.The environmental analysis based on the Grassy Narrows case study of methyl-mercury pollution by Anne McDonald presented at the Japanese Association for Canadian Studies conference in 2007, cited Dryden Chemical Company and nearby Dryden Pulp and Paper Company as subsidiaries of the British multinational, Reed International. A 2014 article in the Star said that Reed Paper Company bought out the Dryden Pulp and Paper Company and its sister-company Dryden Chemical Company in 1985, A December 6, 2019 article by Global News reported that in c. 2011 "Weyerhaeuser Co—and a firm that later became Resolute Forest Products"— were obligated to "care for" the Dryden "mercury waste-disposal site" with its "toxic material" from the "pulp-and-paper mill's operations." The Free Grassy article said that Reed Paper Company that bought-out the Dryden Pulp and Paper Company and its sister-company Dryden Chemical Company. Global News reported on the December 6, 2019, Supreme Court of Canada ruling that Weyerhaeuser Company and Resolute Forest Products—previously known as Abitibi-Consolidated were responsible for cleaning the mercury-contaminated site near Grassy Narrows First Nation. The Dryden pulp-and-paper operations were located on the shores of the Wabigoon River near Wabigoon Lake, the river's headwater. Robert W. Billingsley, who was president of Reed International at the time of the discharge, said in a March 23, 1976 episode of The Fifth Estate about the incidents of Minamata disease upriver from the factory, that "it was pointed out that in almost any sample you would find, perhaps 5% of the population of Toronto that would show symptoms of Minamata disease—headaches, for example, is a symptom."
Reed International, known as Reed Elsevier from 1991 to February 2015, and since known as RELX, is a 6-billion USD London-based "conglomerate which included the largest publishing company in the world and published the largest newspaper in the Western Hemisphere". In 1976, Reed Limited requested permission from the Ontario government to log nearly of boreal forest in northwest Ontario. The provincial government accepted Reed's proposal in a Memorandum of Understanding but had to eventually abandon it while facing "public outcry". In 1976, the Government of Ontario launched the Royal Commission on the Northern Environment, in response to Reed Ltd's intention to construct a new pulp and paper mill and the granting to Reed of the "largest tract of forest land ever given to a single company".
Since the mercury poisoning, members of the Grassy Narrows community "have lived with the consequences of one of the worst cases of environmental poisoning in Canadian history", according to The Lancet.
Initial investigations and actions In their final report submitted to the Attorney General of Ontario on June 28, 1985, in regards to the mercury contamination of the river system used by the Grassy Narrows and White Dog First Nations "from which these communities derived employment and sustenance", the commission recommended that "until the claims of White Dog and Grassy Narrows are settled, the Government of Ontario should not grant any cutting rights to Great Lakes Forest Products Ltd., or any subsequent owner of the Dryden Mill Complex, in forest land outside existing company management units."
In 1970, Fisheries Research Board of Canada's scientist E. G. Bligh had found a number of chlorine plants in Canada were "significant mercury polluters of fish and fish eating birds". Bligh documented "extremely high mercury levels in predatory fish" from the Wabagoon-English river systems, particularly in Clay Lake which is from Dryden, and is the first major downstream lake in the Wabagoon-English River system.
The discovery of extensive mercury contamination in the river system led to the closure of the commercial fishery and some tourism-related businesses.
On April 6, 1970, René Brunelle, then "Ontario Minister of Lands and Forests closed all commercial and sport fishing in the Wabigoon River below Dryden up to and including Clay Lake. On May 1, he announced that commercial fishing was closed on Ball, Lount, Indian, Grassy Narrows, Separation, Umfreville, Tetu, Swan, and Eaglenest Lakes." While the ban on sport fishing was lifted, anglers were warned that their catches were unfit for consumption. On 13 August 1970, George Albert Kerr (1924 – 2007) then Minister of Energy and Resources Management of Ontario, reassured the local community that the Wabigoon river would recover naturally within twelve weeks without government intervention or a cleanup. In a speech to the Ontario parliament in 2010, MP Norman W. Sterling said that Kerr had made up the estimate of twelve weeks, and quoted Kerr as saying, "If I had said it was going to be flushed out in one or two years, they would never have believed me." Sterling's words were "met with laughter in the Ontario parliament". Kerr was named as Ontario's Minister of the Environment on July 23, 1971. Prior to this there was no environment ministry in Canada.
Effects on local communities
To the local community, April 6, 1970, marked the "dividing line between a growing, employed and prosperous traditional community, and an era of disease, government inaction, and Ojibway resistance". To those elders who lived before that time, there were memories of how "all the families in the community would be fishing. Every household went fishing. They sold their fish to the Kenora market." Many also had worked as fishing guides to supplement income. A former chief who has all the "symptoms of advanced mercury-induced disease are evident: the slurred speech, the twisted and cramped arms, the twitch and part paralysis of his face", said, "It was a good life...In our bodies, in our minds, we're always going to be gathering off the land."