About 555,000 kilograms of chemicals is emitted into the air

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Every year, there are lots of chemicals is sent into air, including includingsulphur dioxide, hydrogen chloride and lead.The federal and provincial cabinets are expected to announce theirdecisions on the environmental impact statement this summer.
The plan has divided the residents of Long Harbour.
The town of 211 - down from 522 in 1991 - is still reeling from theclosure of a toxin-spewing phosphorus plant and the commercial codfishery nearly 20 years ago.
"This region has been hit heavy over the past two decades," saidMayor Gary Keating, a supporter of the proposed nickel facility.
A project of this magnitude would revive Keating's communityeconomically and play a major role in securing a prosperous futurefor Newfoundland and Labrador as a whole, he said.
The nickel plant is expected to be the first of four massiveventures to come online in Newfoundland - including the Hebronoffshore oil development, the Lower Churchill hydroelectric projectand an oil refinery - that would pour billions of dollars into theprovince. Construction could begin as early as next year.
Despite its anticipated economic benefits, the facility hasgenerated fierce opposition.
On his back deck, Gerard Brothers points to a one-kilometre-longheap of slag jutting out of Placentia Bay, the remnant waste of thephosphorus plant.
"I grew up with pollution and I don't want to see no morepollution," the 52-year-old said.
With his daughter and wife out of work, Brothers says he strugglesas his family's sole breadwinner.
"I should be one of the ones that want to see this, shouldn't I?Not for the environmental cost," the high school caretaker said.
"If that plant is coming over here, I don't want to live here."
But others say it's worth sacrificing one fish pond in a provincethat has thousands of them.
"To talk about this pond like it's the end of this world, it'spretty crazy," said Bob Murphy, a 51-year-old resident of nearbyDunville.
"We're dead here, we're finished here if we don't get somethinglike that."
In 2002, changes were implemented to the federal Fisheries Act thatallowed Ottawa to classify natural water bodies as tailingimpoundment areas. The amended law requires mining companies thatpropose to dump waste into fish-bearing lakes and rivers to devisea plan to compensate for habitat loss.
In 2006, after the federal government allowed Aur Resources Inc. todump tailings into two ponds in central Newfoundland for acopper-zinc operation, environmentalists warned water bodies acrossCanada would become junkyards for mining companies.
Since then, 15 mining projects have proposed to use water bodies astailings ponds, according to Environment Canada.
"This has become a bit of a plague, quite frankly," said CatherineCoumans, a researcher with Ottawa-based MiningWatch Canada.
Coumans points out that other countries, including the UnitedStates, do not allow water bodies to be reclassified as dumps forthe mining industry.
"We're feeling quite desperate about this right now," she said."Every lake that's destroyed is a lake that's destroyed forever.We're not going to get that lake back."
Chris Doiron, chief of mining for Environment Canada, saidcomparisons with the practices of other countries is unfair becauseof differences in topography and water availability.
"There is no question that we understand that this has to be verycarefully considered and that's where we think we are," Doironsaid.
NDP fisheries critic Peter Stoffer said the reclassification oflakes and rivers amounts to a subsidy for the mining industry. Hesaid he finds it laughable that mining companies would argue thattailings ponds pose less environmental harm than man-made pits.
"That's nonsense," Stoffer said.
"The only reason they're using a freshwater lake to dump theirtailings in is because it's cheaper."
In Vale Inco's case, that's true. After evaluating 12 options forwaste storage, it concluded that a man-made containment would cost$490 million. Converting Sandy Pond would cost $62 million.
But company spokesman Bob Carter said an excavated pit would leavea larger ecological footprint.
"Just by way of illustration, it would be an area of about 9,200Olympic swimming pools in terms of its capacity," Carter said.
"Even if you remove the economic, or financial criteria from theequation, Sandy Pond still is the best alternative."
Keating said he understands why some residents in his town wouldhave their reservations, though he adds that those concerns areoverblown.
"If you don't sacrifice our surroundings to some degree, you cannever have anything," he said.
"That's life."
As part of its plan to compensate for the loss of fish habitat,subject to approval by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, ValeInco would transfer fish out of Sandy Pond into two smaller nearbyponds. Those ponds would be flooded to create one larger lake tohold the extra fish.
But concerns remain that waterfowl could still be exposed toharmful chemicals in the tailings pond.
In its environmental impact statement, Vale Inco said shortexposures to the water would not be lethal to birds, and that birdingestion of Sandy Pond water would be "occasional and acute,rather than chronic," because there are other water bodies nearby.
Vale Inco has not yet determined whether the plant would usehydrometallurgical technology - considered to be more energyefficient than traditional smelting methods - to extract nickelfrom Voisey's Bay concentrate in Labrador.
The company is expected to decide whether that technology iseconomically and technically feasible by November.