CANOE -- CNEWS: - Meeting set on PCB plant

<= !--date goes here-->April 13, 2008

Meeting set on PCB plant

By CHIP MARTIN,= SUN MEDIA<= /o:p>

The legacy of a long-closed London plant will bring people together this month for the first time in many ye= ars.

Their lives touched= by a synthetic chemical that's been linked to cancer, former workers and their survivors will share their stories and look for answers to their health concerns.

Adults who as child= ren played in the plant's effluent also are expected to attend.

Polychlorinated bip= henyls (PCBs) are of such concern to provincial environment officials they are spending $56 million to remove and destroy 2,100 truckloads of river muck containing the compound from a storage site at Clarke Road and Huron Stre= et.

The contaminated so= il was dredged from Walker's Drain and Pottersburg Creek in the early 1980= s.

The chemical was us= ed in the production of electric transformers at the Westinghouse Canada plant = from 1957 until production of PCBs was ended amid health concerns about 20 yea= rs later.

The plant was found= to be a significant source of PCB contamination of the two nearby watercourses = in which neighourhood children played.

Westinghouse sold t= he plant to Swiss-based ABB in 1989 which closed it three years later. =

The PCBs are stored= on a site adjacent to the still vacant plant in earthen b= erms.

Ali Haidar, whose f= ather Mansour worked at the plant in the 1970s and who ha= s lung and brain cancer today, is the driving force in the quest for answers abo= ut exposure to the chemical years ago.

Ali Haidar also wor= ries about the safety of the public today if PCBs are exhumed and shipped from those berms.

He has gone public = with his concerns and has established a website in a bid to help Londoners concerned with the PCB legacy to get information, share their stories and= see if some remedy should be sought.

A lawyer by trainin= g, he has suggested there may be a basis for some sort of class-action lawsuit.=

"These are sim= ple questions we have," he said yesterday. "They have very important consequences."

He has called a pub= lic meeting for April 30 to which he is inviting Londoners who have questions= and also environmental and elected public officials he hopes will have answer= s.

Local 27 of the Can= adian Auto Workers has provided its hall on First Street. <= /p>

Haidar said he expe= cts to fill the hall based on the "great response" to his mission and = his website.

"People have t= old me they are committed to this," he said.

Haidar said he has invited provincial and federal environment ministers, local MPs and MPPs, and Mayor Anne Marie DeC= icco-Best and members of London city council.

IF YOU GO

What: PCB community meeting and information session

When: Wednesday, Ap= ril 30, 7 p.m.

Where: CAW Local 27 office, 606 First St.

More information: www.londo= npcbwatch.org