The Premier says testing downstream from the Muskrat Falls project site and the reservoir shows methylmercury levels are virtually undetectable.

Dwight Ball met with three Indigenous groups on June 11th, and is waiting to hear back from two on draft terms of reference for a committee that will lead to the implementation of four recommendations of the Independent Expert Advisory Committee. He says the new information is available through the monitoring program from the reservoir itself.

Ball says they are not seeing spikes in methylmercury that was previously predicted.

Cabinet previously approved capping at the reservoir, but that raised safety issues. Testimony from the Muskrat Falls Inquiry says the window for capping has closed.

The Premier says they want to see what options are available, but they have to be evidence-based.

Ball says going in it was supposed to be consensus driven, and they didn’t get to a consensus.

Food Safety is No Time for Politics, says Torngat Mountains MHA

The opposition parties don’t agree with the Premier’s assurance that there has been no spike in methylmercury levels as a result of the Muskrat Falls project.

PC MHA for Torngat Mountains, Lela Evans says she doesn’t know what other forms of remediation are possible outside of capping and soil removal, and it’s been said during testimony at the Muskrat Falls Inquiry that it’s too late for capping.

She says once the dam is fully flooded, the vegetation will break down and release methylmercury into the water column, which will then accumulate in the food chain.

Evans says it’s not about politics – it’s about food safety and people’s health. She says once the methylmercury gets into the food chain, the source will be contaminated.

When eating the food it will have a big impact as for example, a breast-feeding mother will have contaminated milk and the newborn baby could suffer brain damage.

She calls it a difficult time, as full flooding of the reservoir area appears inevitable. She calls inaction a form of action when it is deliberate and intentional.

Coffin: Since October Province Has Said Something Would Be Done, and Now They Say Too Late?

The Leader of the NDP says she has difficulty believing that anything will be done to mitigate methylmercury.

Alison Coffin says they’ve been hearing since last October that something would be done, now they’re hearing about impoundment and first water moving through the dam soon, so she believes it’s unlikely anything will happen.

She says if they were really serious about it when remediation was promised back in January, they could have had it done by now.