Fletcher tackled on Canadian mill

Press, 22 November 1989, Page 37

Fletcher tackled on Canadian mill

From REY CHAPMAN in Auckland Six adults and one baby in arms formed a posse of Welcome to shareholders arriving to attend the annual meeting of Fletcher Challenge in Auckland yesterday.

Of the seven rough-and-ready homegrown placards which conveyed the essence of an environmental concern associated with the Fletcher Challenge operating plant at Crofton, British Columbia, two bore evidence of last minute alterations essential to present the name of the offending mill correctly. Any shareholders or media representatives who expected an abrasive confrontation of the type which became synonomous, for several New Zealand companies, with the issue of South Africa, had no joy whatever.

The chairman, Sir Ronald Trotter, primed to the situation through preemptive television and radio interviews, made it clear from the outset that questions of a general nature on any aspect of the company’s undertaking would be accepted under the last heading on the agenda — “any other business.” It was rather towards the end of that period, in fact, that a visitor from British Columbia, a man who gave his name as Randy Thomas, presented a brief which painted an extremely unhealthy picture arising from the operation of the mill at Crofton.

Mr Thomas is apparently not a shareholder in Fletcher Challenge, but was granted entry to the meeting as a visiting radio journalist. He claimed that since 1987, Fletcher Challenge bought the mill and embarked on a programme of expansion, the people of Salt Spring

Island, on wmcn me mill is situated, could no longer eat the fish or breath the air. The children of the island were sick, he said, and people who had retired to the locality were chronically sick. Because of pollution from the mill, he added, property values had dropped by 40 per cent. The company was spending a great deal of money in undertaking what it claimed was an environmental programme, he said, but it was going to take two years to be concluded, and, in the view of the people affected, the wrong equipment was being installed.

It must be said that Mr Thomas presented his case with care and without resorting to histrionics, and because of this, was given an attentive hearing which won polite applause.

He asked, finally, if the company was prepare to close the plant until it could meet local regulations. Sir Ronald responded with an unambiguous “No.” He told shareholders that the expansion programme was within six months of completion and that about half the total expenditure had been on meeting and exceeding environmental standards. It was a gross exaggeration, Sir Ronald said, to suggest that fish and even people wre dying as a result of the mill. He reminded shareholders that Fletcher Challenge Canada had been the first company to set

environmental standards. It had been the first company to hold dialogue with interested and appropriate authorities. It had been the first company to take positive steps toward addressing environmental issues, and was the first company to appoint a vice president with specific responsibility for environmental issues.

He called on the president and chief executive of Fletcher Challenge Canada, Mr lan Donald, to address shareholders. Mr Donald said that Fletcher Challenge Canada had made a public statement that it would cooperate with everyone and meet all environmental standards. All pulp and paper mills in Canada were licensed; he said, and must meet stringent requirements on effluents and other environmental matters. But the standards were continually

changing. It is no longer a matter of environmental impact, Mr Donald said, the latest criteria was a toxicity test. The technology of this test was so precise that only two laboratories in Canada were competent to conduct it, because the levels to be measured were so minute. “To put it in a perspective you can understand,” Mr Donald told shareholders, “you are talking about the thickness of your credit card in relation to the distance between here and the moon.”