Leaders of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation want the province to work with them to improve air quality in the area including cutting sulfur dioxide emissions.

Members of the community were at Queen’s Park Thursday, holding a rally in the wake of benzene emissions in the community. Officials were also speaking to the media about the ongoing air quality problems due to the petrochemical industry which surrounds Aamjiwnaang.

Chief Janelle Nahmabin told reporters the current regulation around the amount of sulfer dioxide emissions haven’t been updated in 40 years. It is a pollutant released from acid gas flaring at oil refineries and emissions from chemical facilities and is linked to several respiratory issues. Sulfer dioxide is especially dangerous to children and people with breathing and heart problems.

Right now, the province allows 40 parts per billion. Aamjiwnaang’s Air Pollution Control Engineer, Scott Grant, says the World Health Organization standard is 10 parts per billion.

Aamjiwnaang has its own sulfer dioxide threshold; if it is exceeded, children stay indoors.

Nahmabin says the province has to work in collaboration with her community.

“Our relationship with governments must be based on respect of our jurisdiction understanding; of our responsibility as Anishinabe people and work collaboratively to address regulatory gaps, regulations that impact our rights and move down a path that begins to heal past injustices,” she said during a news conference Thursday.

Nahmabin says during the April leak of benzene by INEOS Styrolutions, the province acted, but without collaboration. She says the conversations they did have were paternalistic “instead of a one that is in collaboration…we need to have conversations nation to provincial government.”

Grant says the First Nation has approached the province a number of times on the air quality issues. “We’ve had conversations going back years, and yet they just sort of play the game of pass the buck, and nothing ever actually gets done. We’ve made very specific recommendations, and we don’t really get a response.”

Nahmabin says that has to change.

“I want to look at these regulations, the ones that are impacting us, the ones that we could have been implementing…so that we can get to these meaty conversations of like, what is what have you been allowing without our consent?,” she says.

“We are not out to close every single facility that surrounds us, because that’s something that we’ve been hearing. What we’re saying is that there is technology available that would make it safe for our community and for the people that work within these facilities. …We are wanting to help create a better tomorrow, better future, and we’re looking for collaboration in this. We are not out to put fear in people’s hearts for the reliability of their employment, but to protect them as well, protect our members of Aamjiwnaang First Nation and surrounding communities.”

Aamjiwnaang is calling on the Ontario government to:

• Update Regulation 350, the Lambton Industrial Meteorological Alert (LIMA), to address the cumulative impacts and the harms and injustices of SO2 emissions. 
• Take action on the problems identified by the Sarnia Area Environmental Health Project (SAEHP), which was led by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks. 
• Conduct necessary technical reviews to ensure the best available air pollution control is applied to key sources of pollution.  
• Comprehensive follow up investigations are required to assess impacts of past contamination, including cumulative impacts. 
• Review and assess the need for improved oversight of industry process safety management practices.