Construction begins on causeway to link the town of Pictou to Abercrombie Point, and on the dam that will provide the mill with fresh water. Both are to be paid for by government.

In October, officials from Nova Scotia Water Authority invite Pictou Landing First Nation (PLFN) Chief and Band Councillor to New Brunswick, pretending to show them a functioning waste treatment system similar to the one proposed for the PLFN tidal estuary, A’se’k, or Boat Harbour, where the Water Authority wishes to send effluent from the proposed pulp mill. On this false premise, they convince the PLFN to transfer property rights for the province of Nova Scotia, without authorization under the Indian Act. Band receives $65,000. (Photo: Fergie MacKay)

Opposition to the mill’s pollution mounts. PLFN is dismayed by death of fish in Boat Harbour. Fishermen and other property owners in Pictou Landing form Northumberland Strait Pollution Control Committee to demand something be done to reduce the pollution in Boat Harbour and the Strait.

Pictou Landing First Nation ceremonially close the stream carrying mill effluent through Reserve lands to Boat Harbour, protesting the pollution there and contesting the validity of the transfer of their rights for Boat Harbour to the province.

Source: The Chronicle Herald, Courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives (microfilm #5991)

After years of protest by PLFN and non-Indigenous fishermen and other concerned citizens – including unionized workers at the mill, teachers, religious leaders, medical doctors – the treatment facility is modified with new settling ponds and aeration, and a dam is built to control outflow from the Boat Harbour lagoon to the Strait. (Photos: Gerry Farrell)

Nova Scotia government of Liberal Premier Gerald Regan approves $2.5 million for equipment to reduce particulate matter emissions from the pulp mill.

Production at mill is halted by a strike called by Canadian Paperworkers Union. Because of the strike, Scott cancels $51-million modernization plans. The strike, the longest in the history of the mill, ends on May 31, 1983.

Source: The Chronicle Herald, Courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives (microfilm #6322)

Growing opposition to herbicide spraying to promote growth of pulp species for the Pictou mill culminates in a 36-day blockade near Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia, by the members of the “Boycott Scott Committee.” On September 10, three protesters are arrested.

Pictou County physician Dr. Daniel Reid publishes an article in the Nova Scotia Medical Journal in Pictou, and recommends a further epidemiological study to determine if there is a direct link between the pulp mill’s emissions and the high rates of respiratory illness and cancer in the County.

Tens of thousands of fish die at the outfall of Boat Harbour into the Northumberland Strait. The federal justice department later overrules Environment Canada, and decides not to charge the province of Nova Scotia, which owns the treatment facility, for the fish-kill.

Source: The Chronicle Herald, Courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives (microfilm #6375)

A study by H.A. Simons and funded by the federal and provincial governments and Scott Maritimes, is released. It recommends the design and construction of a $74-million treatment facility, upgrading settling and aeration basins, and then piping the treated effluent two kilometres into the Northumberland Strait, bypassing Boat Harbour.

Pulp mill switches from use of chlorine to chlorine dioxide in the bleaching process, to produce chlorine-free pulp for the European market, and to conform with new federal regulations.

NS government provides Scott with $17 million to meet new federal regulations for pulp mill effluent under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which come into force on January 1.

Federal government settles out of court, paying Pictou Landing First Nation $35 million to avoid a lawsuit mounted by the Band because Ottawa failed to protect them when the rights for Boat Harbour were signed over to the province.

Source: The Chronicle Herald, Courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives (microfilm #8808)

The giant US firm, Kimberly-Clark Corporation, buys entire Scott Paper Corporation for $7 billion in stock. However, the pulp mill in Pictou is still referred to as a Scott mill.

Source: The Chronicle Herald, Courtesy of Nova Scotia Archives (microfilm #9272)

PLFN says it will not oppose extending the operation of the treatment facility to 2030 on condition that Kimberly-Clark will build a pipeline to bypass Boat Harbour in 2005, when the lagoon is to be closed, cleaned up and restored as a tidal estuary by the provincial government.

The Progressive Conservative government of NS Premier John Hamm extends the lease for the mill’s use of the Boat Harbour treatment facility until December 31, 2020, without consulting PLFN or waiting until the existing lease ends in 2005, at which point a bypass pipeline is supposed to be built.

Consultants for Kimberly-Clark say bypass pipeline will cause eutrophication as effluent will be pushed back into Boat Harbour from the outlet into the Strait, so it will not be built, although it was a precondition for PLFN to agree to the lease extension. Nevertheless, the lease extension remains in place.

No pipeline has been built and Boat Harbour does not close as promised. Kimberly-Clark and the Nova Scotia government under PC Premier John Hamm ask PLFN for an extension of the use of Boat Harbour until 2008.

Neenah Paper sells more than half of its land holdings in NS – more than 200,000 hectares – to the New Hampshire investment firm, Wagner Forest Management Ltd, which divides the land between two separate corporate entities, Atlantic Star Forestry and Nova Star Forestry, one with woodlands to be clearcut to feed the pulp mill (Wagner signs an agreement with Neenah to this effect) and the other to hold properties to be sold off as cottage lots.

Provincial government under PC Premier Rodney MacDonald and Northern Pulp ask PLFN for an extension on the use of Boat Harbour past 2008. PLFN refuses. Northern Pulp misses the deadline to complete a bypass pipe and stop using Boat Harbour for its effluent.

PC government of Premier Rodney MacDonald loans Northern Pulp $15 million from the Industrial Expansion Fund.

New citizens’ group, Pictou County Watershed Coalition, reiterates calls to the provincial government to undertake an epidemiological study to determine the effects of industrial contaminants in the air and water, including Boat Harbour and the area around its outlet on the health of residents of Pictou County.

Former PC Premier John Hamm becomes chair of the board of Northern Pulp Nova Scotia Corporation, the umbrella company of eight companies registered in Nova Scotia.

Peter MacKay, federal Minister of Defence in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, announces $28.1 million grant to Northern Pulp from Natural Resources Canada and the Green Transformation Fund for reducing odour emissions, upgrading boiler and increasing use of renewable energy.

The NDP government of Darrell Dexter writes to Northern Pulp CEO to offer 125,000 green tonnes of fibre a year from the former Bowater lands in southern Nova Scotia, which the Crown purchased for $111.7 million with widespread public support provided that the public was fully consulted over their use. This offer to Northern Pulp is made before any consultation takes place, and the terms of the offer are not made public.

Northern Pulp’s Industrial Approval expires, but is extended for one year.

Just 21 days before Dexter’s NDP government is voted out of office and replaced by the Liberals under Stephen McNeil, the NDP government gives Northern Pulp a 4-year $3.6 million loan.

Northern Pulp’s Industrial Approval is extended again, this time until January 2015.

Following a summer with some days of extreme air pollution in Pictou before a new precipitator is installed, in September a “Clean The Mill” concert is organized on the waterfront by the Clean The Mill group and another calling itself Clean Pictou Air Group of Businesses. The concert attracts about 3,000 people.

The Boat Harbour Act is passed by all three political parties, setting January 31, 2020 as the closing date for the Boat Harbour treatment facility.

Nova Scotia environment minister makes major concessions to Northern Pulp in a revised Industrial Approval. Northern Pulp is still dissatisfied. It goes to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia to appeal the Industrial Approval.

Northern Pulp pleads guilty to breaking sub-section 40(6) of the Fisheries Act – “unlawfully depositing or permitting deposit of a deleterious substance, namely pulp and paper effluent, in water frequented by fish” – during the 2014 pipeline break.

Northern Pulp is fined $225,000 for breaking the Fisheries Act in 2014, of which $75,000 are to go to the Mi’kmaw Conservation Group, $75,000 to the Pictou County Rivers Association, and $75,000 to the Pictou Landing First Nation.

The Nova Scotia government determines that a 45-day Class I environmental assessment is sufficient for Northern Pulp’s new effluent treatment facility, rather than a more stringent and longer Class II environmental assessment.

Northern Pulp orchestrates a letter-writing campaign among employees and former employees to threaten boycotts of all Chapters / Indigo / Coles bookstores across Canada if the author of a new book, The Mill – Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest, is permitted to sign copies at a bookstore in New Glasgow, Pictou County. The book signing is cancelled.

A new citizens’ group, Friends of the Northumberland Strait, is formed and works with fishermen’s groups to push for a Class II provincial environmental assessment and also a federal environmental assessment.

PLFN, the Northumberland Fishermen’s Association, and Friends of the Northumberland Strait link up with other citizen groups to organize a land-and-sea rally on the Pictou waterfront and in Pictou Harbour to call on the government and the mill to find an alternative to putting mill effluent into the Strait. And estimated 1,000 people from three Maritime provinces gather on land, hundreds more come in fishing and pleasure boats, and several Mi’kmaq chiefs are present to support the “No Pipe” rally. (Photos: Robert Bean)

Nova Scotia’s environment minister announces that Northern Pulp needs to provide the province with a focus report, as there are 19 items missing from its proposal. Paper Excellence Canada CEO renews the company’s calls for the government to extend the legislated closure date for Boat Harbour.