Welded Tube of Canada Corp. - Environmental Compliance Approval (air)

Various comments received from the public stated concerns for the:

• air, noise and light emissions from,
• designated municipal land use for,
• municipal policy and practices related to,
• occupational health and safety matters at, and
• insufficient information in the ERO proposal notice for the application related to,

the Welded Tube of Canada Corp. ("WTCC") facility located at 191 Ridge Road in Welland, Ontario.

Ministry response:

All air emissions in the supporting Emission Summary and Dispersion Modelling Report, prepared by BluMetric Environmental Inc., and submitted in support of the WTCC application have been reviewed and found to be compliant with the Ministry's Ontario Regulation 419/05: Air Pollution - Local Air Quality ("O. Reg. 419/05"), and all other applicable policy and guidelines.

All noise emission sources in the supporting Acoustic Assessment Report, prepared by Howe Gastmeier Chapnick Limited, and submitted in support of the WTCC application have been reviewed and found to be compliant with the Ministry’s Publication NPC-300, Environmental Noise Guideline, Stationary and Transportation Sources – Approval and Planning (“NPC-300”) upon the implementation of a noise abatement action plan consisting of administrative controls, noise barriers and custom infeed and outfeed conveyors to reduce impulsive noise, all installed within seven years of the issuance of the approval.

Other public concerns regarding the:

• light emissions from,
• designated municipal land use for,
• municipal policy and practices related to, and
• occupational health and safety matters at,

The WTCC (Welland) facility are outside the jurisdiction of the Environmental Protection Act and O. Reg. 419/05, and are not related to the issuance of this approval for air and noise emissions from the subject facility.

Regarding the public concern that insufficient information was provided in the proposal notice:

• The proposal notice posted to the Environmental Registry stated that the applicant is requesting renewal of their Limited Operational Flexibility (LOF) conditions previously granted in their Environmental Compliance Approval No. 4211-8HDK99. The information in the proposal notice posted on the Environmental Registry follows our standard wording for applications from proponents seeking to apply for an approval with LOF, or to renew their LOF conditions granted in their previous approval.
• On a related issue, during the review of the application, a request was received from a member of the public to view the information submitted in the application. WTCC provided redacted versions of the submitted information and were subsequently provided by the Ministry to the requester. In providing the redacted information to the requester, the Ministry’s response also advised the requester that if the provided information is not to their satisfaction that they may wish to consider submitting a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Ministry. Contact information for the Freedom of Information and Privacy Office was also provided in the response to the requester. To date, the Ministry has not received a request through FOI for the information submitted in the application.