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Boat Harbour by the Numbers

Apr. 23, 2009 | 1:00 p.m. | Updated on Sep 18, 2023

2 min read

The story of Boat Harbour has most often been told in numbers. Big numbers, small numbers, ironic numbers. Here are just a few:

Number of years since Boat Harbour was turned into an industrial waste treatment lagoon: 42
Estimated amount of liquid pulp-mill waste that has gushed into Boat Harbour since then: 1,000,000,000,000
Number of premiers who have overseen the Boat Harbour file: 10
Number of government commitments to close boat harbour: At least 5
Number of those promises kept: 0 (so far)
Number of provincial cabinet ministers who participated in meetings with the band in November and December 2008: 3
Number of towns Nova Scotia Water Authority chair John Seaman Bates once proposed should put their human sewage into Boat Harbour: 5
Number that actually did: 0
Amount in 1966 dollars to build the pipeline to carry waste from the pulp mill to Boat Harbour: $2,000,000
Amount estimated by a Truro engineer to transform Boat Harbour into a treatment lagoon: $95,000
Amount the Scott Paper company was to pay each year for waste treatment according to 1970 agreement with Nova Scotia: $100,000
Amount Nova Scotia paid the Pictou Landing band in 1966 as one-time compensation for loss of use of Boat Harbour: $60,000
Amount paid by the federal government to Pictou Landing band for failing to protect its interests when Boat Harbour became a waste lagoon: $35,000,000
Number of members of Pictou Landing First Nation): 565
Amount of the lump sum payment the band received under a 2001 memorandum of understanding with Kimberly Clark: $950,000.
Amount of annual payments thereafter: $200,000
Number of hectares of land the band was to receive under its MOU with the paper mill: 4,000
Size in hectares of the large settling (sedimentation) lagoon at Boat Harbour: 142
Number of cubic metres of accumulated sediment estimated to lie on the bottom of that lagoon by consultants Jacques Whitford in 2003: 70,000
Approximate number of Olympic-sized swimming pools to hold 70,000 cubic metres: 25
Average thickness of the sediment: 5 cm
Percentage of the toxic sediments the province thinks it can dredge out: 90
Estimated cost to dredge: $7,000,000 to $12,000,000
Percentage of responsibility the province has for pollution in Boat Harbour from 1967 to 1995: 100
Amount of the March 2009 loan to Northern Pulp by Nova Scotia to keep the mill in business: $15,000,000
Potential cost of replacement waste treatment facility for the pulp mill: $100,000,000